Christmas Eva Read online

“Lots of fun,” he paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask for a while, how’s Eva doing?”

  “Not so well.” She moved back against the wall, to avoid the gaggle of lost boys running down the hallway. “She’s been home a few months now, but she won’t leave the house, apart from church, and only then if we can guarantee it won’t rain.”

  “Rain?” He waved to the lost boys, grinning as they waved back.

  “She hates the rain. Sometimes it brings on panic attacks. She’s also confined to a wheelchair.”

  A wheelchair? Shock slammed into him. “Is she paralyzed?”

  Felicity sighed heavily. “She can move her arms and legs, but can’t walk. It’s almost like she’s given up. She quit her job. She isn’t eating much.” She shrugged. “It’s as if she died in that accident, too.”

  Concern speared Harry. He was still praying constantly for Eva. He’d been instantly drawn to her. He’d go as far as to say it was a long distance crush, a bit like he knew from fan letters, women had on him. “Tell her I say hi.”

  She smiled. “I will do. Have a fun rehearsal.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  One of the boys came running back to him. “Mr. Lyell, you’re needed on stage.”

  Harry swung the kid onto his shoulders. “Then we best be away to the Jolly Roger, arr Jim lad,” he said as James Hook.

  ~*~

  On his way back to his hotel that evening, Harry resisted the urge to jump in the puddles. Why did working with kids all day bring out the child in him? His mind returned to Eva. Should he go and see her, or would that be classed as creepy? He didn’t want her to feel like he was stalking her, but somehow their lives kept intertwining.

  Reaching his small hotel room, he dropped to his knees by the bed, praying for Eva. He’d love to see her again, if that were possible. She hadn’t left his prayers or thoughts since he’d heard of her accident. OK, he’d only met her twice; once in April and once in May. He was the first person she’d seen when she woke from her coma. And there was something in the way she looked at him.

  Wasn’t there?

  Oh, maybe he was imagining it, and there was nothing there. But he had to find out. If only he could work out a way of seeing her again.

  ~*~

  Sunday morning, Harry slid his long, black overcoat over his suit and put his shades on. He was old school enough to believe in wearing his Sunday best to church. He walked the short distance from the hotel to the church he’d found—Headley Baptist. He’d looked it up on-line and even downloaded a few of the sermons to check out what the teaching was like. It really seemed like his kind of church, so he was filled with eager anticipation for worshipping there.

  He found a seat at the back, pleased it was padded chairs and not the hard wooden pews in his parents’ home church, and immersed himself in his usual pre-service routine of reading the notice sheet and looking up the Bible reading and sermon passages. These he read through slowly, before praying over the passage, and for the pastor who’d be leading and teaching that morning.

  A familiar voice filled his ears as he raised his head. Shock almost knocked him sideways. Eva sat in a wheelchair, pushed by her sister. She was thin, her now short hair still looked damp from being freshly washed, and her eyes sad. Her clothes hung off her.

  “What’s wrong with the back row? No one can see me there.” Her whisper carried to him.

  “The back row is full because we’re later than normal.” Felicity didn’t sound irate or upset as she slotted the wheelchair into a space on the end of the short row of chairs to the left hand side of the chapel. “And no one will look at you anyway. They’re not here to watch you, but to worship God. And we can’t sit with Mum and Dad because they’re on duty upstairs this morning and haven’t saved us a place. Besides, you normally complain about being ignored in this contraption.”

  “Only in restaurants,” she sighed. “But not here, in a designated wheelchair space. I would like a hymn book with my pew, thank you.”

  “Silly,” Felicity replied, sitting next to her. “It’s here or nowhere.”

  “Enough of the silly. It takes one to know one.”

  Harry knew there and then that he wanted to do something, anything, to snap Eva out of this. He prayed for wisdom to work out what that something was. Even if Eva didn’t turn out to be Miss Right, there was a reason he couldn’t forget her. He had to see her again. Just to make her smile.

  But here wasn’t the place to do it. He’d have to get her address from her sister and pay her a visit. He was tempted to give up his seat for her, but if she was already self-conscious...

  Then, as heavy rain hit the windows, a stark change came over Eva. She tapped on the arm of the wheelchair and closed her eyes.

  The first hymn began and everyone rose to sing. Harry took one step from his pew, ready to offer assistance, but Eva had calmed. As the service progressed, he kept half an eye on her, while keeping his mind fixed on the Lord and his reason for being in church.

  During the last hymn, an advent carol, Harry resolved to go and speak to Eva after the service, but when he raised his head from praying for the right words to use, she was gone.

  3

  Eva spent the first week of December inside on her own as much as possible. Felicity had mentioned the panto at every opportunity. This morning she had put the four tickets on the pin board in the kitchen for today’s matinee.

  Eva didn’t want to go. She had no intentions of going, no matter what anyone said. She even went as far as praying for rain. But the day of the panto show dawned bright and sunny, if a little chilly, and by two o’clock, the blue sky was annoyingly cloudless.

  Her mother breezed into the room. “Time to put your coat on, Evie.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Oh, yes, you are.”

  Eva scowled and folded her arms. “Oh, no, I’m not.”

  Her father chuckled from the doorway. “Are you two practicing already?” he asked. “Come on, I don’t want to be late and parking is going to be horrid. Town will be full of Christmas shoppers. I thought after the show we could go to dinner in one of the stores and maybe look at getting a new tree and decorations.”

  Eva caught the jacket he tossed her and stifled the objection to the thought of going shopping. “We have a tree.”

  “That tree is older than Felicity. It’s high time we had a new one. And you can help chose the decorations and lights for it.”

  OK, Dad was treating her as if she were a child so maybe she was acting like one. She shrugged into her jacket and tugged on her woolen hat. “Must we?”

  “Yes, we must”

  Eva didn’t speak the whole ride to the Adelphi Theatre. Despite her father’s overcrowding concerns, they managed to find a space on the ground floor of the multi-story car park in a disabled space. Being in the chair did have the occasional advantage, but parking was the only one she could appreciate.

  The car park was cold, and Eva shivered as her father pushed the wheelchair across the concrete. The sound the tires made annoyed her, a rubbing, clicking sound that grated on nerves that were already at a breaking point from having to leave the house.

  Memories of the last time she’d been in a theatre assailed her, knotting her stomach and tightening her chest. If she could get up and run, she would. She didn’t want to be here.

  The tall building loomed ahead of them, and she was propelled up the ramp at breakneck speed as her father found that hilarious. Perhaps he should sit in this chair and be pushed at stupid speeds everywhere. See if he liked it so much then. Just the thought made her smile a little.

  They had seats in the front section, and Eva’s chair slotted into an empty space on the end of a row. She sighed. Talk about making it obvious.

  Felicity looked at her. “What’s up? And don’t say ‘nothing.’”

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” she said quietly. She looked at the seat next to her and then back at the wheelchair. “When you said seats for the show I thought�
��”

  Her sister frowned for a moment. “Oh,” she said, the penny dropping. “I’m sorry, Evie, I didn’t think. Tell you what, next time I’ll get four seats, and we’ll lose the wheelchair in my office. I would do it now, but it’s a full house.”

  “It’s the opening show. And a full house is a good thing, isn’t it?” She wasn’t going to add there wouldn’t be a next time.

  “Yes, but this year it’s Matthew Lyell. He’s pulling in the crowds. April is even talking about extending the run if we can.”

  Eva looked at the program on her lap. She closed her eyes, trying to deal with the raw emotions flooding her. A mix of grief and anger at Sue’s death, panic at being out of the house and her comfort zone, embarrassment at being in public in this chair, and the usual butterflies that seeing Matthew Lyell’s photo anywhere gave her.

  The lights dimmed and Eva found her heart beating in time with the orchestra. She wanted to hate this, but couldn’t. As the pantomime got underway, she found herself caught up and transported with Wendy and Peter Pan to Neverland. And when Captain Hook appeared to rapturous applause, she found herself clapping with the rest of the audience. She booed and hissed and sang the ridiculous song about a cow and the number of legs it had, or didn’t have.

  She wondered whose idea it had been to have a pantomime cow on board the Jolly Roger as she knew there wasn’t one in the book. But she had to admit it was a brilliant touch, with plenty of fresh milk jokes. She ate ice cream in the interval and even found herself smiling at her father’s awful puns.

  After the panto finished and the actors vanished back behind the curtain for the last time, she looked at her sister. “Thank you. You were right. It was fun.”

  Her sister winked. “Oh, no it wasn’t…Yeah, actually, it was and you’re welcome. Want to come see my office?”

  “Sure.”

  Felicity stood and maneuvered the wheelchair towards the stage entrance. “We’ll go this way.”

  Eva looked with undisguised interest at the stage as they got closer. The tech crew was cleaning up and preparing for the next performance.

  “Miss this?” Mum asked.

  “A little. Mind you, TV and film work is vastly different from stage work. But I can’t go back to it, not matter how much... You can’t do makeup sitting down.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t, that’s why.”

  “No such word as can’t,” Felicity said. “There are ways around it. Anyway, these are the dressing rooms. And this is the after-the-opening-show party.”

  The room was full of all the cast members, most still in costume and makeup, drinking coffee and eating fish and chips. As Felicity introduced Eva, they were all too happy to sign her program. She was only missing one signature, but he wasn’t there.

  Felicity looked around. “Has anyone seen Matthew?”

  “He’s having makeup issues,” half the pantomime cow told her.

  “OK.” She looked at Eva. “Then let’s go find him and get the last signature you need.”

  Before Eva could hardly draw breath to argue, Felicity had whisked her from the room and down the hallway.

  Eva glanced at the door in front of her. A star hung at an angle with Matthew Lyell written on a card beneath it.

  Felicity straightened the star and knocked on the door. “Mr. Lyell?”

  “One minute,” came the reply.

  Eva glanced at her sister. “He’s busy. It’s fine.”

  “Just wait a minute, like he said.”

  The door opened. And there he was, wig off, hair covered in a hair net, his makeup untouched. He still wore the black silk knee length breeches, white socks, and black patent shoes with gold buckles. His long red coat was tossed on a chair by the mirror, and his white shirt open at the neck, with the bunch of lace in his hand. His intense gaze took them in, before he smiled. “Hi.”

  Personally, Eva concluded he was tired and really didn’t want to be bothered right now. He must hate all the attention and constantly being hounded purely because of who he was…is.

  “You remember Eva, Mr. Lyell,” Felicity said. “I’m giving her the backstage tour.”

  His smile changed, somehow almost becoming less forced, and he held out a hand. “Of course I do. How are you?”

  Eva shook his hand. “Fine.”

  “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you, aside from a quick glimpse of you in church on Sunday.”

  She glanced at her reflection in the huge mirror. “Oh?”

  He caught her look. “You were barely awake, wired to who knows what, and covered in bandages and bruises.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She looked down at herself. “This is hardly an improvement.”

  Felicity coughed, a sure sign she was annoyed again. “Could you sign her program, please?”

  “Sure.” Mr. Lyell reached out and took the booklet and pen. He signed over his picture. “Did you enjoy the show, Eva?”

  “I did.” She noticed he even pronounced her name correctly, something not many people remembered to do, even after they’d heard it.

  “Rick said you were having makeup issues…” Felicity said.

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

  Eva frowned at his hand and pointed. “What’s that?”

  A red mark covered the back of his hand. He glanced down and tugged his sleeve down to cover it. “It’s nothing. Just a rash.”

  Eva glanced up at her sister and then back at him. It wasn’t ‘nothing’, especially with makeup issues, but she didn’t have the right to ask. Oh, well. He could only say no. “It looks more than nothing. May I see?”

  He hesitated. “OK.” Slowly he held out his hand.

  Eva took his larger hand in her smaller one. His skin was soft and warm. She looked at the mark, realizing she was right. It was a clump of raised dots. “It’s an allergy rash.”

  “Really?” He rubbed the side of his face. “What to? I haven’t changed anything. And it has only come out in the last day or so.”

  Eva watched him. “It could be the makeup. Does it itch?”

  “Yeah—like crazy. It’s been driving me nuts since the makeup girl put it on.”

  Felicity nodded. “You should take it off. Evie, why don’t you give him a hand?”

  “I—”

  Her sister cut off her protest. “Yes, you can. She’s a trained makeup artist. She’s worked on heaps of film and TV shows. And won awards for her work.”

  He smiled and pointed inside his dressing room. “Come in.” He moved over to the chair in front of the mirror and spun it around. “How much lower do you need me to put the chair? Or is there somewhere else you’d like me?”

  “Ummm…” Flummoxed, Eva struggled to get her brain in gear long enough to think coherently. Where would she like him? A stupid question which only brought stupid responses to her mind and none of them repeatable in his presence. “Maybe lower it a little.”

  She ignored the way her face burned at the prospect of touching him, instead focusing on maneuvering her chair across the increasingly tiny room. She could almost feel the walls closing in on her.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d worked on hundreds of actors, some of whom she’d admired. So why was this one man so different? Yes, she had a crush on him. No, he wasn’t going to like her back. She was a nothing, a no one…she couldn’t even walk, and sure wasn’t pretty. So not the type of girl he’d go for. Not in a million years.

  He sat on the chair and lowered it as far as it would go. Then he leaned it back so his head was almost in her lap. “How’s this?”

  Eva caught her breath as his gorgeous blue eyes gazed up at her. “That’s…” She cleared her throat. “That’s fine.”

  Felicity put the box of wipes and several jars of cream at her side. “I have no idea which is which,” she said.

  Eva eyed the jars, automatically knowing which one to reach for. “This one for now.” She slowly and gently began to remove the makeup. It had been plastere
d on far too thickly, even for a stage production.

  “How long have you been doing makeup?” he asked her.

  “All my life,” she said. “Started with dolls and went from there. Went to college, did hair and beauty, but preferred this to cutting hair.” She paused, still unable to believe that she was sat here, Matthew Lyell’s head in her lap, whilst she was touching his face.

  Oh, grow up, Evie.

  “So whose makeup have you done?”

  Eva detailed the A-list actors she’d worked on. “Most of them were pretty nice, but a couple…” She looked down at him. “But of course, what is said between makeup artist and actor is pretty sacrosanct.”

  He grinned. “Of course. And I make it a rule never to be rude to them. Just in case they take their revenge and send me out looking stupid—with clashing eye shadow and orange lipstick or something.”

  She chuckled. “It’s tempting at times; believe you me, Mr. Lyell.”

  His eyes twinkled and his lips kept the smile that was purely for her. “Please, call me Matthew.”

  She held his gaze, her heart pounding so loud she was sure he’d be able to hear it. “OK, Matthew.”

  His smile echoed in his eyes.

  Eva turned back to her work. Dismay cluttered her thoughts as she finally removed the last of the makeup. His skin was red and blotchy, his right eye slightly puffy, and a rash had started to form across his chin and forehead. “You can’t use this makeup again. Have a look.”

  He sat upright and glanced in the mirror. His face fell as he ran his fingertips over his face. “What…” Matthew’s voice tailed off in dismay and shock.

  “Have you ever reacted like this before?”

  “Once, years ago, but never this bad.”

  Eva looked at Felicity as she cleaned her hands on the baby wipes. “You’ll need to replace all his makeup with hypoallergenic stuff as soon as you can; if possible before the next performance. I can give you the brand and so on.”

  “Thanks, Evie. I’ll make sure we have it for tomorrow’s performances. But what do we do for tonight? Everywhere will be closed by now.”