Christmas magic?

Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write about anything to do with Christmas. This week’s story comes from the pen of Phil Yeats.

In April 2024, Phil published The Body on Karli’s Beach, the third book in his Barrettsport Mysteries, a series of soft-boiled mysteries set in a fictional South Shore, Nova Scotia town. For information about these books, The Road to Environmental Armageddon, his trilogy about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change, and his latest, a novella titled Starting Over Again: A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy visit his website: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/.

 

Christmas magic?

by Phil Yeats

 

He shuffled into his neighbour’s living room, giving the brightly lit tree and the other guests a wide berth. He found a chair in a remote corner and settled down with the one glass of eggnog he’d permitted himself. In less than an hour, he’d slink to the door and into the cold winter night for the walk down the street to the tiny house he and his wife had chosen as their retirement home after their daughter left home.

Now, three years after his wife died, he rattled around the place alone. He seldom interacted with his neighbours beyond the perfunctory ‘hello, how are you’. He wondered why he’d accepted the invitation to the neighbourhood Christmas party. It was too late to revisit that decision, so here he was watching the goings-on while trying to blank out the cacophony of voices echoing off the living room walls.

He was sipping his eggnog—it had the perfect amount of rum in it to dispel the overwhelming sweetness of the raw beverage—when someone stopped beside his armchair.

“Mind if I perch here for a few minutes?” she said.

He suspected she’d asked her question several times before it penetrated the personal firewall he’d erected to protect himself from unwanted noise. He jumped up and offered her his seat.

The woman, who looked like she couldn’t be more that ten years younger than his 53 years, laughed. “Not trying to steal your seat. The arm will be just fine.”

“Don’t think I’ll be good company, but if you want a place to perch, you’re welcome to it.”

She sipped her eggnog quietly for several minutes. When he finished his, she gulped the last of hers and asked, “Can I get you another?”

He held out his glass. “I wouldn’t mind another adulterated one if you’re going.”

She returned and passed him his refilled glass. “My name’s Lizzy, and I know yours is Glen. My daughter and I have been house-sitting Bev Carstairs’ place for the past two months, and we have another month to go.”

When she sipped her drink, he said, “Must be nice to go away for three months during the winter. They have a dog, don’t they? You looking after it?”

“Yorkie. Little guy’s not much trouble, and Jenn, my daughter, really likes him. But the reason I’m telling you this is that we’ll be looking for a new home in a month. Diane, our hostess, tells me you have an unoccupied apartment.”

“I do, but it needs work. My latest tenants were a disaster. Parties two or three times a week. They skipped out at the end of last month, owing me a month’s rent. When I got inside, I found holes punched in the walls, broken furniture—an awful mess.”

“Wow! Can’t the university’s housing agency do something?”

“Tried. Turns out they registered. I checked that before I rented to them, but they didn’t pay the second installment of their fees due on October first. The university disowned them, and they’ve apparently left town, but of course they didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m not a student. I’ve lived here all my life. I have a job, but I’m not making a huge amount of money because I’m working reduced hours so I can be home for Jenn as much as possible. This is a great neighbourhood, and we’d like to be living near here when she starts school in September.”

He took a notebook from his pocket, tore out a page and wrote his email address on it. He handed it to her. “Pick a time and day that’s convenient for you, and you can come have a look at the place. See if it suits you.”

“What about now? I could collect Jenn and we could go over right now.”

“She’s here?”

“Yeah. Several parents brought their kids. They’re in the lower-level rooms, where Diana’s daughter runs a daycare.”

“Okay, but it might be better to see the place in the daytime. It’s much nicer in the daylight.”

Glen downed the last of his second eggnog while Lizzy collected Jenn. Then they got their hats, gloves and boots and headed past five intervening houses to his. Along the way, he wondered how he got into this mess. He’d promised himself one drink and forty-five minutes at the party. He’d been there for over an hour and two drinks. Not only that, but he was escorting prospective tenants to view the apartment he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to rent again.

***

The Spot Writers:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com
Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/