he asked as he drove. “When’s the next town meeting to decide on whether her inn can go ahead?”
“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. “I’m waiting to hear. They’ll post a bulletin once the zoning board’s had its meeting. I’m sure it won’t be for a while yet.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Daniel asked.
“Of course. Competition, especially from someone like Raven, is always a scary prospect. We’ve had it easy so far. The market was ours.”
“That was easy?” Daniel joked, referring to the years and months of work they’d put into making the inn a success.
“You know what I mean,” Emily said. “We never really had to worry about bankruptcy before.”
“And we do now?” Daniel asked, his jokey expression from before having entirely disappeared.
Emily bit her lip. “Maybe a little,” she told him. “If things don’t pick up soon. But don’t worry, I’ll come up with something. A Christmas ball. With Roman singing. For a hundred dollars a ticket!”
She was only joking. Using Roman’s celebrity status for her own gain was not something she would ever do. But a Christmas ball for the town might be a nice idea.
Daniel still looked concerned.
“Hun,” Emily told him, firmly. “I’ve got this. Don’t worry. Nothing, not even Raven Kingsley’s new inn, will stop us. I promise. We’re too determined to fail now.”
She spoke confidently, but there was also doubt in the back of her mind. What if this was the winter they couldn’t weather? What if her perfect life was about to come crashing down around her?
Daniel pulled into the school lot. The day was already out and all the kids were playing in the large playground, supervised by their teachers. Emily caught sight of Chantelle, playing with Bailey and Laverne. It was such a relief the girls were friends again.
She got out the pickup truck and waved at Chantelle’s teacher on the steps outside the school. She also waved at Tilly, the school’s receptionist Emily had recently bonded with. Tilly was having her afternoon coffee break out on the steps with the rest of the faculty. She waved warmly at Emily.
Chantelle must have noticed her parents because she came running over.
“Guess what!” she cried. “We’re doing A Seussified Christmas Carol for our concert this year!
“What is that?” Emily asked.
“It’s Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol but all in rhymes like Doctor Seuss,” Chantelle told her. “And I’m playing The Ghost of Christmas Past!”
Emily knew enough to know that was one of the central parts to the play. After Ebenezer Scrooge, the ghost would surely have the most lines.
“Well done sweetheart!” she said, hugging Chantelle tightly.
Once she’d released her, Daniel swept her up into the air.
“What a cool part!” he exclaimed. “I’m so proud of you!”
He placed her back on her feet, and Chantelle reached for something from her satchel.
“These are my lines,” she said, holding up a thick booklet with a recognizable Seuss-style illustration on the front of it. “The play will be on Friday 18th December.”
Emily looked at Daniel, her eyebrows raised. Baby Charlotte would be born by then! Suddenly it all felt incredibly real. And so, so exciting.
“That’s not very long to learn all your lines,” Daniel said to Chantelle. “Three weeks?”
“I know,” she told him, looking suddenly very serious. “But I can do it.”
“Of course you can,” Emily told her.
They all climbed into the truck and Daniel turned the ignition. It juddered to life with a spluttering noise.
“When I get home, can I start decorating the inn for Christmas?” Chantelle asked from the back seat.
Emily laughed and glanced over her shoulder at her. “We’ve only just had Thanksgiving.”
“I know,” Chantelle replied. “But I love Christmas so much. I just can’t wait to swap my fall leaves bunting for snowflake bunting.”
Daniel started to chuckle. His gaze flicked up to Chantelle in the rear view mirror.
“You can decorate the inn however you want,” he said.
Emily smiled to herself. She loved Chantelle’s creativity, and she loved the way her home was transformed for every festivity, every season, by the child’s hand. She wouldn’t swap it for the world – not the plastic spiders she kept finding down the back of furniture from Halloween or the tiny American flags between the floorboards from July 4th. Her life was perfect. Fingers crossed, it would stay that way.
A few minutes later they returned home, and Daniel parked up outside the inn. The vast drive was completely empty now. With no guest cars filling the outside space, the drive looked suddenly enormous.
They went up the porch steps and in through the large door of the inn. As they stepped inside, Emily discovered, to her surprise, that the fall decorations were already gone. She’d only been out the house for a couple of hours, but someone had turned the inn back into a blank canvas. Who could have done so?
She thought of Lois and Marnie using some of their extra time during their slow shift to tidy up, or maybe Vanessa had done it during her cleaning. But then she heard voices coming from the living room and instantly realized who had instigated the tidy up.
She went into the living room, and there sat the culprit: Amy. Amy was so organized it was no surprise she’d immediately put their thanksgiving decorations away.
She wasn’t alone though. Sat on the couch beside her, by the lit fireplace, with Mogsy’s head resting in her lap, drinking what looked like cocoa with marshmallows in, was Patricia. Not only had Emily’s mom gotten a taste for marshmallows ever since her first experience of smores, she’d learned to appreciate the love of a smelly, moulting dog. And, more importantly, she’d stayed for the whole thanksgiving weekend. It was a miracle, as far as Emily was concerned, that she and her mom had spent three whole days together without killing one another. Things really did seem to be changing for the better. In fact, Emily was a little melancholy that her mom would be leaving today.
“Amy!” Chantelle cried when she saw Emily’s friend sat on the couch. “We’re allowed to decorate the inn for Christmas. Did you get the stuff?”
Emily frowned and looked at Daniel, perplexed. By his expression she could tell he was just as curiously amused as she was.
“Of course I did,” Amy replied with a grin.
She grabbed a large carrier bag from down the side of the couch, where it had been out of view. Emily could see sparkly silver fabric, glittery snowflakes, and plastic icicles poking out the top of the overstuffed bag.
“What’s all that?” she exclaimed. “You’ve been scheming! The two of you!”
She tickled Chantelle in the ribs and the little girl squealed. Then she wriggled away from Emily’s fingers and hurried over to Amy. She grabbed the bag and peered inside.
“This is so cool,” she told Amy. “Can we start now?”
Amy looked at Emily as if for approval.
“Don’t look at me,” Emily laughed, holding her hands up into truce position. “You two have clearly got plans!”
They both scurried into the corridor and began to string fairy lights across the ceiling and spray fake snow on the window panes. Emily watched them from the doorway, her shoulder resting against it. She felt a very strong sense of Christmas cheer.
“My back’s killing me,” Daniel said then, appearing behind her. “I’m going to take a nice long soak.”
“Good