All I Want For Christmas Is You - Penelope Ward Page 0,4
a teacher who looked like you and made shit that tasted like this, I’d probably still be coming back at my age.”
Even with only the light from the flashlight, I could see Josie blush. That surprised me; she had to be used to compliments with the way she looked.
“Umm…my candles should be in the top drawer of the sideboard in the dining room,” she said. “Follow me with your flashlight.”
She pulled a bunch of candles from a drawer, and then walked to the mantel over the fireplace and grabbed a lighter. After lighting a few candles around the room, she handed me two unlit ones.
“Here you go. These are from Thanksgiving, so they might smell like pumpkin or spices.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
The flicker of the candle she held in her hand caught the blue of her eyes, and damn, her eyes were gorgeous. I forced my gaze elsewhere and nodded toward the door. “I’ll, uh, head back over to my place and give the power company a call.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll call and report the power outage, too.”
Three hours later, I called the electric company a second time to see if they had an ETA on restoring service, but they still had no clue. I really needed to get some work done. My truck had an outlet, so I figured I’d go sit in the car to charge my laptop enough to see where I’d left off in my manuscript. At least then I could write using paper and pen tonight. But when I raised the garage door so I wouldn’t suffocate myself with exhaust fumes, I looked across the street and saw two rooms lit up over at Josie’s house.
What the fuck? They restored her power and not mine?
How long had she had electricity?
Rather than start the truck, I marched across the street and knocked on Josie’s door.
“When did you get your power back?”
“Oh…” she said. “I didn’t. I have a gas generator. I went to the gas station a little while ago.”
I frowned and lifted the laptop in my hand. “Do you mind if I charge this?”
“No, of course not.” She stepped aside for me to enter and pointed to a power strip on the floor in the living room. “Go right ahead. Help yourself.”
After I plugged in and made sure my laptop was charging, I glanced around to see what her house looked like in the light. “I’ll be back in, like, an hour to pick it up, if that’s okay?”
“Sure.”
On my way to the front door, Josie called after me.
“Cole?”
I stopped. “Yeah?”
“Are you hungry? I just put in a tray of homemade manicotti.”
While I debated the pros of a good meal with the cons of spending time with a woman who reminded me of Jessica, my stomach growled. Loudly.
Josie laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Uhhh…” I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting at the dining room table. Since Josie’s living room didn’t have a lamp to plug into a power strip, we ate our meal by candlelight.
The room was so quiet. I watched as she refilled her wine glass. Mid-pour, she looked up and caught my eyes on her.
“What?” she said.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Well, you’re staring at me, so it’s not nothing. Tell me what you were just thinking.”
Since what your lips taste like probably wasn’t a good answer, I said something else I had wondered about. “What got you started with the Christmas over-decorating?”
She smiled sadly. “William. William got me started. He was a student of mine. I had him in class nine years ago, in my second year of teaching. He had spina bifida and was confined to a wheelchair, but you’d never know it from his attitude. He was the happiest child I’ve ever met—and he loved Christmas. He used to decorate his wheelchair with lights and ornaments two months before the holiday. Because of his spinal-cord issues, he’d had quite a few back surgeries. He was preparing for his sixth one, which was scheduled for after our school year ended. It was supposed to give him a chance to walk with a walker for the first time ever. The last thing he said to me before summer break was that everything was going to be okay because he had asked Santa for sea legs in December.” Josie shook her head and wiped a tear from her eye. “An unexpected blood clot broke apart during his surgery. It went to his heart. He died on the table.”