Selling the Drama (27 page)

Eventually, Charlotte leaned down in front
of him, cupping his face within her hands. "I love you."

He laughed through his tears at her. "Thanks
for that."

"You're welcome." She brushed the tears off
his cheeks with the palms of her hands. "Don't make me say it
again." She smiled then, a real smile. It had been so long since he
had last seen it. "By the way, you're on the couch until further
notice."

"Of course I am." He would sleep on the
floor if he had to. He would do anything she wanted, anything at
all she asked. Anything to avoid a separation like the one they had
just endured. Reaching out once more, he placed his hand onto her
belly, seeking what he had almost lost, knowing instinctively that
he still had a long way to go before everything would once again be
right, yet understanding that he had just taken a very big step in
the right direction.

Jenna and Chad arrived to stay for Christmas
on the twenty third of December, loaded with presents, enough
luggage for six months, a boiled fruit cake, and a chicken. A live
one.

"I am not plucking that," Toby announced,
backing away with his hands up as soon as he saw it in her
arms.

Jenna looked deeply offended. "This is not
to eat! This is my pet. Daphne."

Toby nodded. "Of course it is. My
mistake."

Chad laughed and held out his hand to Toby.
"Good to see you."

Toby accepted his hand graciously.
"Likewise. It'll be nice to actually get to know each other this
time," Toby remarked. The two of them had not seen each other since
that day Toby had turned up at Jenna's to beg Charlotte's return.
Chad grinned at him and then turned to greet Charlotte, wrapping
her up in a bear hug that lifted her right off her feet.

"You look skinny! I thought you were
pregnant!" Chad teased.

Charlotte laughed at that, shaking her head
at him. "Sure, sure. I'm like a baby whale and you know it!"

Jenna cast Toby a glance of suspicion. "Are
you behaving yourself?"

"It would appear so. But feel free to
examine my every move while you're here and give me a report at the
end."

"Well, you can't be doing everything right
because you're still sleeping on the couch," she remarked
loftily.

Toby winced at that. "And once again, you
know way too much."

Jenna winked at him, the chicken fluttering
about in her arms. "I know everything." She leaned up then so she
could give him a kiss on the cheek. "But the couch aside, you're
doing alright."

He nodded then and stepped back from her,
not too partial to being quite this close to a live chicken and its
beak. Iris finally put in an appearance, standing at the top of the
steps and looking down at them from the doorway.

"Good heavens, Jenna! A chicken?
Really?"

Jenna turned up to look at Iris. "This is
not just a chicken. This is Daphne."

"I don't care who she is. She's not coming
inside."

Jenna looked offended once again. "We'll see
about that," she muttered in a low voice that only Toby could hear.
"Of course not Iris," she sang out loudly, rolling her eyes in
Toby's direction.

A good old fashioned family Christmas. Toby
was unsure if he should be excited or frightened.

Charlotte felt Toby lean in against her
back, his mouth close to her ear. "The chicken is in the shower in
the main bathroom." Charlotte giggled at that. "There's shit in
there now."

"This is one of those times you pretend you
haven't seen anything and you go upstairs each time you need to use
the bathroom even though it's miles out of the way." She spun
around, bumping her belly against him. Looking up into his smiling
face, Charlotte was gripped by an urge to kiss him. She was getting
that urge more and more, and not acting on it was becoming
increasingly difficult. That feeling, the sorrow mixed with anger
that she been nursing, was slowly dimming and becoming harder and
harder to tap into. Or maybe, she was just not inclined to try so
hard at locating it anymore. Toby leaned down a little closer to
her.

Jenna bounced up then, throwing an arm
around each of them, yanking their faces up against hers. "Aww,
were you two kids about to kiss?" She gave each of them an
exaggerated kiss on their cheeks, attacking Toby with particular
vigour until he broke away from her grasp. "Two words, peeps.
Christmas karaoke."

Charlotte shook her head, a feeling of alarm
stealing through her. "One word. No."

"Iris!" Jenna called out loudly. "Charlotte
won't play with me! She's being mean."

"Charlotte, play with your aunt before I
kill her over all of this chicken shit!" Iris bellowed from the
bathroom down the hall.

"Ooops." Jenna pulled a face at Charlotte as
Toby snorted with barely concealed mirth from behind her. "Now
might be a really good time to head out for that karaoke."

Charlotte shook her head once again.
"Karaoke is bad enough, but Christmas themed? Do you know how many
groups of drunk people are going to get up and pretend that they're
Band-Aid? Please, don't do this to me. Spare my unborn baby's
ears." She looked over at Toby with a pleading expression. "Help me
out here."

He shrugged. "I don't know, I've always been
partial to a little John Lennon and Yoko at Christmas."

"Where is Chad? Surely he doesn't want to do
this," Charlotte moaned.

"Chad does everything I tell him to. He's
waiting in the car." Jenna yanked on Charlotte's arm, pulling her
along out of the kitchen. "Bye Iris! Are you sure you don't want to
come?"

"Why does she get a choice?" Charlotte
whined.

"Because she's cleaning up my chicken
shit."

"I hate karaoke!" Iris called out from the
bathroom.

Leaning his elbows onto the table, Toby
nodded toward Chad's drink. "Charlotte can drive, she won't drink
while she's pregnant. Why don't you have a drink? Other than
water."

Chad gave his head a light tap. "No alcohol.
And I'm never driver, with or without it."

Toby looked at him with sympathy. Charlotte
had of course told him about Chad having a brain injury, but he had
not given it much thought after finding out about it. "No alcohol,
ever?"

"It's not a good idea. I prefer to roll
around on the ground foaming at the mouth at home, if possible."
Chad grinned at Toby, despite the image his words conveyed.

"How old were you when it happened?"

"Twenty."

"Shit." Toby felt bad for the guy then. He'd
had his whole entire life ripped away from him. Just like that.
"What did you do before it happened? For work?"

"I was at uni in my final year of an
Electrical Engineering degree. I had no hope of finishing after and
when I tried later on down the track I couldn't do it anymore. I
can't remember anything when I need to and the concentration
required tends to bring on a seizure." He delivered all this in a
very matter of fact tone, not a hint of bitterness evident.

Toby could not imagine being so at ease with
such a situation if it were him in Chad's place. The lack of
control, the loss of your identity essentially. He took a large
mouthful of his drink before looking back over at Chad.

Chad was regarding him carefully. "I know
what you're thinking. But I've been like this for twelve years now.
I'm used to it. I wasn't always so accepting."

Toby shook his head at that. "What changed
for you? To help you accept?"

Chad merely shrugged at Toby's question,
taking a mouthful of his bottled water before answering. "You get
sick of being angry. And you realise that no matter how long you
wait, it isn't gonna get better. And then you meet a terrific woman
who isn't freaked out when you have a seizure in her bed on the
first night you sleep with her and you realise that maybe there's
something to look forward to after all."

Toby looked over at Jenna who was shrieking
with laughter at the poor shmuck up on stage trying to do an
impression of Michael Buble and saw in her in a slightly different
light. There was probably a depth to Jenna that he had never really
given her any credit as having and he felt a little rotten for that
in this moment. It was all too easy to roll your eyes and dismiss
her, but loyalty had always been one of her strongest points and it
seemed a shame to think that everyone was able to overlook it so
easily on account of her scattiness. She rose from her seat then
and raced up to the stage, her turn at the microphone coming up
when the Buble wannabe finally decided to cut loose and get the
hell off the stage.

Charlotte leaned over to him, her lips
touching his ear. "You have to race up there and pull her down the
minute any item of clothing looks as though it's about to be
removed."

Toby laughed at that. "Sure thing."

The music for Jenna's chosen song blasted
out through the speakers, and Charlotte groaned, her forehead
hitting Toby's bicep repeatedly. "She is such a Wham tragic." As
Jenna crooned away to 'Last Christmas', Toby inched his hand down
below the table to rest it on top of Charlotte's bare leg. He
trailed it upward, dipping under her skirt but she reached below
the table and hit his hand away.

"Nice try," she said, sardonically. "But I
haven't had nearly enough of these," she held up her bottle of
water, "to be swayed into letting you off the couch."

"Who said anything about getting off the
couch? Maybe I'm trying to get you onto it with me," he teased.

"Good luck with that."

Toby grinned at her. He was a lot closer to
getting off the couch than he had ever been before. Charlotte had
been much more responsive to him these last couple of weeks, ever
since he had attended a doctor's appointment with her where he had
been given the opportunity to listen to the baby's heartbeat, and
had subsequently bawled like a baby himself right in the doctor's
office. It seemed as though the more he disgraced himself, the more
inclined she was to give him a little bit of herself back. Toby
stared up at Jenna, almost at the end of her song, with an idea
forming in his mind. He downed the last of his drink as he
contemplated whether he had the guts or not. Chad kicked him
against the side of his foot.

"Do it. I dare you." Chad's smile was wide
as he indicated to the stage with a nod of his head.

Toby raised his eyebrows in question, Chad
giving him another nod.

"Go on, it'll be a crack."

Toby got to his feet, Charlotte looking up
at him curiously. "Are you going to get another drink? Can I have
an orange juice?"

He shook his head. "Not yet. I have to make
a detour on the way to the bar."

"What?"

He gave her no answer though, heading out of
their booth and straight up to the stage. Jenna's face took on a
delirious expression as he gestured to her for the microphone,
climbing the steps up to the stage. This was either going to get
him laid or laid out; but if she smiled even just once during the
whole thing, then it will have been totally worth it.

"What is he doing?" Charlotte looked up at
Toby taking the microphone from Jenna, with alarm. "Chad! What is
he doing?"

Chad grinned at her, a lively look on his
face. Leaning forwards, he tapped her hand with affection. "My best
guess, is that he's about to make a grand gesture."

The music started and Charlotte dropped her
face into her hands. "He's not serious." The beat of 'All I Want
for Christmas' blared out of the speakers as Charlotte groaned,
shaking her head in her hands. "No, no, no!"

"Oh, yes!" Chad tugged at Charlotte's arms.
"Come on, you're missing it."

Jenna appeared at the table, tugging at
Charlotte as well. "Get up. Come on, this is brilliant."

Charlotte looked up as Jenna whistled
loudly, cheering Toby on. Chad just grinned at her, nodding his
head in the direction of the stage, where Toby was now at the
chorus, doing a fairly embarrassing dance to go along with his
cheesy song. He seemed to have decided that if he was going to do
that thing up there, whatever that thing actually was, then he was
going to go all the way with it. And possibly then some. Charlotte
blushed furiously, failing to suppress a wide grin when he pointed
her out, as though he had been watching and waiting for a reaction
from her. Of course everyone sitting around them had to turn and
seek her out then, beginning to clap like idiots at the impending
excitement of seeing another person embarrassed beyond belief in
public. Charlotte was seriously contemplating dropping to her knees
and crawling under the table when Toby jumped off the front of the
stage in an attempt at rock star glory, but he slipped, probably on
someone's spilt drink, and went down hard, flat on his back.

Jenna burst out laughing, pressing her hands
to her mouth to stifle the worst of it. Charlotte pushed past her
and headed to where he was lying, the music still playing 'All I
Want for Christmas' with most of the crowd singing along with it.
Dropping to her knees beside him, her heart was pounding with worry
at what he might have done to himself.

"Are you hurt?" She looked at him, surveying
for any obvious damage.

"I think I'm okay. My back hurts, but I'm
sure I'll live." He winced as he sat up.

"What were you thinking?!" Charlotte checked
him over, shaking her head all the while. "You could have seriously
hurt yourself! We could be calling an ambulance right now! That was
such a stupid thing to do."

"But funny, right?"

Charlotte looked at him, about to let loose
again, but she stopped when she saw the hopeful expression on his
face. Biting her lip hard to prevent herself from smiling at him,
she said, "Well, you've given me no choice but to let you sleep in
the bed tonight because there's no way I can leave you on the couch
with a sore back."