The Great Christmas Breakup (18 page)

But how long could about fifteen hundred
dollars last?

Maybe
Chocolato
would employ me on a more regular basis?
I could always ask, couldn’t I?
Lolly said she’d pay me for her next windows
– in fact, she said I could
change them again in the new year.

I needed to charm the boss of
Chocolato
, if only I co
uld discover who he was.

It was strange
I
hadn’t come across
the owner
at
any of the stores.

Each of the respective managers
indicate
d
he was pretty ‘hands-on’.

At the second store
, the
female
manager said he was out the back
counting inventory
and went to get him, but it tra
nspired the man had
inexplicably
disappeared through a little
-
used rear exit.

‘Well, hello again.’

Robert was
standing
there, his sculptu
red features staring down at me, sporting a bemused grin.

‘So, Scarlet, how’s the job going?’

With his face bright
from the cold, and his huge, lumberjack-style
designer
coat
being at the very height of fashion
, my old crush certainly made an impact on the ladies. At least four women, including the g
irl cashier, looked up as he pec
ked in the
general
direction of my cheek.

‘Good.’

Nice one. What a conversationalist. No wonder you are almost jobless!

He ordered our coffees
, remembering my preference from last time,
and
I began to tell him of my observations
.

H
alfway through my s
oliloquy Robert grasped m
y still gloved hand.

‘Why are you still wearing these?’

He didn’t let go.

U
ncomfortable
under his querying stare, I eased m
y hand away.

‘C
old extremities.
I d
on’t know why, coming from
England you’d think I’d be used to the cold.
’

‘Here, let me warm them for you.’

Robert took off the cheap woole
n mittens with the disturbed-looking
Santas on them
and gently rubbed each hand, one by one.

I should have taken my hands back
immediately
, but
I discovered
it actually felt g
ood to have someone touching me; t
o have someone ca
ring about me
.

‘Tall
skinny
cap, tall gingerbread latte with cream,’ the barista called.

Coming to my senses, I leaped up to get the drinks, a
nd when I returned, Robert had the same
bemused smile on his face
.

‘I would have gotten the drinks.’

‘
It w
armed me up, moving about.’

I placed his creamy beverage in front of him.

Again, the blue eyes bore into my own. Some women might find it alluring, but I felt too exposed by his obvious interest and turned away.

‘Do I repulse you that much, or are you no longer used to intimacy?’

I looked back at him.
The
pale
eyes
were still locked onto my
own brown
ones so I
quickly
cast a glance elsewhere
in the room
.

It seemed that if I lied, he would know.

‘Well?’ he pressed.

A moment later I answered.

‘The latter.’ It was a whisper.

W
hat the hell I was saying?

And why
was
I saying it?

‘That’
s what I hoped,’ Robert replied, sitting back with satisfaction.
 

‘Now, tell me more about the chocolate.’

*

Hammertro was waiting for me as I entered the building
.
L
ooking like he was being auditioned
for some magazine spread
, he was

leaning
agai
nst the stack of unclaimed mail
(Yes, it was
that
tall
a pile!)
in his loose western shirt, vest and black trousers.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, panicked.
Hammertro didn’t
usually
waste time hanging about foyers.
Not unless he was on a ‘job’.

‘Are the kids okay?’

‘Nothin’ happin’, seeeexy mo
mma, chillax.’

‘What?’

The
fine features contorted as he
sighed deeply and dramatically. ‘
Imma just w
aitin’ for your
hot
sist
a
-in-law.’

‘You shouldn’t go there,’ I said.

The white teeth
glistened.
‘Too late.’

I winced.
Too much information.

‘Look, H
ammertro, I should warn you, Cecily 2
is more than slightly insane . . .’

‘
Yeah, t
hat’s what I love about her.’
He ran a tongue around his lips, as if showing me what else he liked about her.

I didn’t reply. What else was there to say?

Except, Cecily 2 is mad, so R.U.N.!

Then I remembered the
Chocolato
business.

‘Look, is your uncle up for some work?’

My neighbor’s ear
s pricked up. ‘What kinda work?
It involve guns? ‘Cause that’s
A.
O
.
K.
’

‘
No guns.
It’s a
legitimate business arrangement.
I am working on these shop
windows–‘

‘Y
ou want s
omeone to help you knock off some
merchandise, eh?’ Hammertro came closer and nudged me, nodding knowingly.

‘No, of course not!
Honestly, Hammertro, don’t you know me at all?’

‘What
’s to know?
You
’re broke, I’m broke, U
ncle
Rabbit
, he’s broke too. Why not get us some Christmas cheer, hah?’

‘
Forget crime for a moment, will you?
I want Uncle Rabbit
to do some work on some
old-fashioned fruit boxes
.
They need to look like Noah’s
Ark
s.
I’ll pay
him
.
I need some windows built into them, and some hidden insulation.’

‘Why
?’ Hammertro was
marginally
intrigued; he
was
still maintain
ing
occasional
eye contact with the front door.

‘To put chocolates in. So that they don’t melt. The insulation should protect the
m from the heat from the lighting.
’

Now that there wasn’t any ‘action’ involved, h
e wasn’t
interested.

‘Righ
t, whatever, here comes seeeexy Ce-ce. I’ll speak to my uncle late
r, but I’m sure he won’t say no to cash. It is cash, right?
’

‘
Yes.
In that case,
I’ll bring the boxes around to yours tomorrow, okay?’ I had no idea where I would get retro fruit boxes
from
, but there had to be somewhere
to find them
, didn’t there?

‘Yeah, whatevs, heeeelllo seeeexy,’ he whistled, as my revolting sister-in-law sashayed through the broken security door
in her leatherette mistress uniform
.

‘Nice day at work?’ I asked.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Cecily 2 yelled.

There was not the slightest inflection of s
arc
asm in the question – Cecily 2 was truly a mad bitch. You couldn’t even ask her how her day was without getting pounded.

‘Forget it,’ I said, moving
up the stairs in front of them, the sound of loud, smacking kisses making it difficult to resist the urge to throw myself down the
centre of the stairwell.

*

Carson made an appearance
just as I was dishing up a tomato and basil
pasta an hour later. He was carrying
yet
a
nother
load of books, which he quickly
shoved into his filing cabinet and locked up.
Perhaps he was worried one of us would
set them alight to save on fuel?

‘You’re late,’ I said yet
again.

‘And you could have given me a lift home from Manhattan,’ Cecily 2 com
mented, sliding into the room in
shorts and a vinyl looking vest top
.
‘I know you saw me.’

Running his hand through his thinning hair – his newly developed nervous tick – Carson said he didn’t know what Cecily 2 was on about.
‘What were you doing in Manhattan?
’ he shot back.
‘
Your work’s in Brooklyn, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ I added.
Wasn’t that
job the reason
she was staying with us, tor
turing
me daily?

‘I was shopping. It is coming up to Christmas.’ Cecily 2 looked about
the room
,
her red-rimmed
eyes shifty.

‘But you don’t work in Manhattan either, Carson, do you? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’
What was going on? Everyone related to me seemed to be becoming a compulsive liar. Or
perhaps I was simply
going
mad?

‘I
told you, I
wasn’t in
Manhattan
,’ Carson told us, not very believably.
Then he tried to deftly change the subject:
‘Now, what’s for dinner?’

I filed his p
athetic excuse away in
the back of my mind, alongside
all
the others.

‘Someth
ing that looks like it was scra
p
p
ed off the stree
t,’ Cecily 2 winked at the kids, who had come into the kitchen at the sound of the raised voice of their dad.

Cecily 2’s
eye
twitched radically, and Jessie
backed away again,
saying she wasn’t hungry.

Clearly the poor child preferred
starvation to eating with her dysfunctional aunt.

J took one
look at the supper on offer – pasta with
dried basil,
some beans of dubious origin in a sauce of ketchup, and followed his sister back down the hall.

‘Right, that’s me done.’ I dropped the pot on the table. ‘You two enjoy.’

Heading
down t
he corridor, I found the kids in J’s room
.

‘Anyone
fancy
some
McDonald’s?’ The $1000
deposit from Robert
was supposed to be for fittings, but I
figured I
could afford to spend a little on subsistence, couldn’t I?

‘Yes!’ J punched the air, and we quickly bundled up and raced out the door before Cecily 2 and
Carson got wind of what we were up to.

Sod them both.

*

Just be
fore bedtime, with Carson teed off
at having to spend two long hours listening to his sister discuss the sex life of her cat
again
, the phone rang.

I let the machine pickup.
The answer machine contained four
new
messages
, all
from Mum.