Page 1 of Yule Party on Sunflower Street

1

TARA WARREN

‘What do you think, Tara?’

Tara lifted her gaze from the box she’d just opened and shook her head at her sister. ‘I don’t think it’s designed to be worn like that, Sadie.’

Sadie chuckled. ‘Don’t you like it? I think it’s the perfect uniform for working at Tinsel and Twine.’

Sadie turned in a circle, arms outstretched, her small white teeth exposed in a maniacal grin. The gold tinsel wrapped around her body shone under the shop lights, and the Christmas tree skirt tied around her waist flared out like a crimson tutu.

‘You’re bonkers, Sadie!’ Tara giggled then turned her attention to the box she’d just opened. It contained smaller boxes of fairy lights shaped like mini reindeer that she hoped would go down well with the customers.

The floor of the shop they were renting in Wisteria Hollow was a chaotic mess of boxes. While some were neatly labelled, others were simply marked as ‘miscellaneous’, leaving Tara with no idea what was actually inside them. She’d purchased the mystery stock in bulk from a warehouse sale, hoping to score some cheap Christmas decorations.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Tara said, heading for the door that led to a small staff kitchen, storeroom and WC. ‘This early November cold is making me crave lots of tea.’

‘You always drink lots of tea,’ Sadie said. ‘No need to make an excuse to have a cuppa.’

The kitchen window overlooked a small, rectangular yard where there was a rickety table and one solitary chair. The high wall meant there was no view but at some point, someone had added a stone planter to the wall and a few straggly plants wilted inside it. Tara had gone outside a few days earlier when they’d first arrived and sat on the chair, but it had wobbled precariously so she’d propped it against the wall of the building in order to remind them both not to sit on it at any point.

The building was perfect for their needs as a pop-up Christmas shop and so things like the boring yard and toilet that didn’t always flush properly the first time weren’t an issue, really. It had everything they needed for this exciting venture they’d been talking about for years and she wasn’t about to let unimportant things bother her.

Neither was she mourning the fact that this Christmas was her first in years as a single woman; there would be no one to kiss under the mistletoe and truth be told, it was a relief. She was in charge of her own life and her future. The world was her oyster, and she was keen to take a bite.

No, wait. She’d never eaten an oyster, but she didn’t think you were supposed to bite them. Didn’t you just swallow them down whole or something and then try not to gag? They looked like giant bogies, and she’d never been a huge fan of shellfish so the idea of eating an oyster turned her cold.

‘Hey!’ She turned to the doorway to see Sadie now wearing a full Father Christmas costume complete with bushy white beard. Her bobbed brown hair could just be seen under the hat’s white trim. ‘What’re you daydreaming about?’

‘Oysters…’ Tara said.

‘Oysters?’ Sadie wrinkled her nose then tugged the beard down. ‘Why?’

Tara laughed. ‘I was thinking about the possibilities that lie ahead for us and then I started using metaphors and found myself wondering if you bite an oyster or swallow it whole.’

‘Horrible things,’ Sadie said, reaching for one of the mugs of tea on the counter. ‘We had them once in France.’

‘Did you?’ Tara followed Sadie back through to the shop where they sat on the stools behind the counter with their steaming mugs.

‘Sander loves them and said it would be romantic to have them for supper. He did that winky thing he does and⁠—'

‘Winky thing?’ Tara frowned.

‘Yeah, you know.’ Sadie winked at Tara, her eyebrows waggling just below the rim of her red hat. ‘He was like, “Let’s have oysters,” winky winky.’

‘Winky winky?’ Tara giggled. ‘Did he say it as well?’

Sadie shrugged. ‘He might well have done. By that point, we’d had a few cocktails, and it seemed like a good idea to soak them up with some food. But the restaurant we went to advised having the oysters with absinthe and the combination was, well, not a good one after consuming the cocktails first.’

‘What happened?’ Tara leant forward. Her sister always had so many good stories to tell.

‘Well… They brought out the oysters and Sander had eaten them before, so he was all confident and excited. He showed me how to hold the shell and he chugged it back in one go.’ She grimaced. ‘Then he smiled at me like the cat that got the cream and told me to eat one.’

‘And?’ Tara sipped her tea.

‘I picked it up, examined it and I just… stared at it.’

‘Why?’