‘So this is it?’
Cleo shook her head, rolled her eyes. ‘This isn’t it. I’ll see you again before New Year’s. Now off you go before you start me crying.’
‘Thank you for the bonus and the best socks ever!’ Kaisha picked up her knitting bag and hugged Cleo goodbye.
‘Thank you for everything.’ And she let her soon-to-be-ex-employee out of the store.
Out back, Cleo got started. She sensed Jacob was about to fall asleep and Ruby wouldn’t be too far behind. This city was magical but it was busy, unforgiving on little ones, and now she suspected all they wanted was their beds and the dream of Santa in the morning.
Cleo handed Ruby a set of five-millimetre needles, slightly shorter in length than an adult would use. She had picked out an Aran weight yarn so it wasn’t fuzzy and would allow Ruby to easily see each stitch. Cleo cast on, and sitting next to Ruby she showed the little girl how to hold the needles in an x shape so she could clearly see where to wind yarn around, where to insert the needle, and how to hold the yarn tight so it didn’t all fall off the needle.
‘Like this?’ Ruby, tongue between her teeth as she concentrated, was tired yet determined.
‘That’s it.’ Cleo waited for Ruby to poke the right needle through the yarn on the left needle and then instructed her how to wind the yarn round with her right. She managed six stitches in all before Cleo announced that that was enough for the first lesson.
‘You’ve got to take it slowly,’ she advised Ruby. ‘Otherwise you’ll get frustrated and end up hating it.’
Dylan nodded his thanks as his head tilted towards Jacob’s who was almost asleep lolling on his shoulder. ‘What’s up, Ruby?’ he asked, picking up a negative vibe from his daughter. ‘You look like you’re not enjoying it.’
‘It’s not that… it’s just that I hadn’t thought about knitting. If I had, I would’ve asked Santa for some knitting needles for Christmas.’
Dylan smiled across at Cleo. ‘There’s always next year. Come on, we’ve taken up enough of this lovely lady’s time.’ He stood up and set Jacob on his feet with a few words that he had to walk a little and he’d pick him up again in a while.
‘Thank you, Cleo.’ Dylan and the kids had all shrugged on their coats, scarves, hats, and gloves, an operation in itself as they prepared to meet the New York winter. ‘You’re not working too late tonight, are you?’ he asked when she’d unlocked the door and the kids had disappeared outside to admire the window display again.
‘No, I’ll call it a day soon. I need to lock everything up, alarm it, turn off all the lights. Then I’m off to the café for a bit of a get-together.’ She gulped. Shutting up shop tonight was going to be harder than she’d imagined. The thought of her last Christmas here in the West Village was enough, never mind her longer-term plans, which were as high up in the air as Santa’s sleigh right now.
Cleo tugged Dylan’s sleeve to pull him well inside the shop door away from prying eyes.
‘What’s up?’ Dylan moved closer.
She plucked a couple of hanks of the same yarn they’d been using tonight, from the basket on the floor, and handed them to him. She felt guilty because he looked like he’d expected something else when she also showed him a new pack of starter needles she’d grabbed on her way past the haberdashery. ‘Put them in Ruby’s stocking,’ she whispered. ‘From Santa,’ she added with a wink.
‘Thank you, Cleo.’
Their eyes locked and the heat between them made Cleo forget she was standing there with the door wide open and the frost beginning to layer up outside. Because she wasn’t feeling the cold. All she felt was this pull towards Dylan. Should she ask him about Prue? Ask for the truth?
‘Merry Christmas, Cleo.’ Dylan leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
Her heart soared and her eyes shone. ‘Merry Christmas, Dylan.’
When Dylan and the kids walked away from the store, Cleo stood in the doorway and watched them go. Dylan turned back once before they reached the end of the street, again before he turned the corner and each time she waved.
And now, the inevitable had come. She went inside the store and locked the door behind her, alone once again. They’d reached another Christmas Eve in the Little Knitting Box and it was time. She cashed up and locked everything in the safe. Although she’d told Kaisha to leave the clearing up, her pride couldn’t let her do the same. She swept the floors and dusted. She neatened up the yarn in containers, on shelving, on the ladder. And when she knew everything was done, she switched off all the fairy lights on the displays, all the plugs out back. She put the alarm on, locked the door behind her, and pulled down the security grill, which along with the dark obscured her vision of the treasured inside. But she could still just about make out her Grandma’s old sewing machine sitting proudly on display: Grandma Eliza’s machine, her store, her dreams.
When Cleo pushed open the door to the café, it was with sadness but also joy at seeing all the familiar faces, the friends she’d made. Rita had the Christmas tunes on full blast with Slade’s ‘Oh I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ filling the room. The smell of mulled cider enticed Cleo all the way up to the punch bowl where Cecelia and Cecil were ladling out servings to everyone. And in this big city, Cleo had never felt so much a part of everything. Even some of her regulars from the knitting group had turned out despite the cold.
By the time Cleo left the party, what had started as a few hopeful flakes from the skies above when she’d said goodbye to Dylan had quickly turned into heavier snowfall. Head down against the cold, she made her way home. She dodged the crowd emerging from an all-night diner warmed by the laughter coming from the inside. She hurried on past, along freshly snow-coated sidewalks, leaving footprints in her wake. She turned into her street, the brownstones standing majestically against the winter, proud to be a part of this magnificent city.
‘Hey you.’ A black cat had trotted up to her, its paws leaving tiny indentations that were quickly covered by fresh snow. Cleo crouched down and stroked the cat underneath its chin. It rubbed its cheek against her hand and she took off her glove to make a fuss of him properly. ‘Well you’re just beautiful.’
When Cleo stood to go on her way, the cat weaved in and out between her ankles and she couldn’t resist crouching down again. ‘It’s so cold out here. You have to go home.’ If someone didn’t claim him in the next five minutes she was in danger of doing that herself. She’d let him curl up on the sofa next to her and make a fuss of him as long as he liked. But when a golden glow spilled out onto the sidewalk from the door to the brownstone she was outside and the cat trotted up the steps away from her, she realised it wasn’t meant to be. She was facing Christmas alone so she may as well get used to it.
Cleo wished Merry Christmas to people she knew from the area, to complete strangers too. Christmas Eve was always magical and possibly more exciting than the big day itself. There was the anticipation of what was to come, and when she turned on the fairy lights in her apartment, illuminated the tree with its twinkly lights and wrapped her hands around a mug of steaming hot chocolate, she wondered what Grandma Eliza would make of the store closing its doors.
She finished her hot chocolate, pulled on her pyjamas, and climbed into bed to watchIt’s a Wonderful Life. This was what she’d planned for Christmas Eve after the gathering at the café, but without tomorrow to look forward to with Grandpa Joe, it wasn’t the same. She’d call him in the morning and go over there, if only to stand at a distance and wish him a Merry Christmas. She didn’t want to be alone.
Who knew, maybe the store closing its doors and forcing Cleo to take control of her life could work out for the best. Maybe Christmas miracles were possible, and once she left for England in January, she’d at last know where she wanted to make her Happy Ever After.
