The next morning Ellen and Linda took me holiday and clothes shopping. A little store downtown carried summer shirts and seasonal jeans and Ellen dragged me there. "You're so small, any shirt in here'd fit!"
"That's good, 'cause I have a roast in the oven for dinner tonight and I can't leave it in there all day," Linda said.
"Don't worry Lin, the boys have it handled."
"Yeah, we'll come home to ashes."
"'Boys, where's the house?' 'The living room used to be here, the bathroom kind of went everywhere, and the kitchen was the first to go,'" I joked.
"'Smells a bit like roast too,'" Linda imitated Malcolm making us laugh.
"'By the way Lin, what's for dinner?'" I replied, more laughter erupting.
After shopping we went to the house so Linda could check on her roast. The house was still standing. Angus walked by us on our way inside. "Hey Ella, hey Lin," he said. The other two didn't notice, but I stood and watched him continue to the living room. He didn't even acknowledge me. I shrugged thinking he just didn't see me, and followed the women to the kitchen.
Angus made up his mind the night before to forget his feelings for Hannah. It was time to move on. He started his plan by pretending not to notice her when they came home from shopping. It hurt to ignore her, but he figured it'd go away in time. He didn't tell anyone what he was doing, especially not Malcolm. He'd be pissed he was denying his feelings again, but Malcolm didn't understand. He didn't have this problem. Besides his plan had to work. It worked with Bon's death after all.
The next couple of days went by and before we knew it, Christmas Eve was on our shoulders. Cliff and his girlfriend Georganne went to get a tree to put in the living room. Ellen wanted to make desserts this year since this was her first Christmas with the band and knew how to bake. I wasn't objecting to food.
Malcolm must have noticed something different about Angus the same time I did. He would talk to me and laugh with me, but he didn't hold that same closeness as the first time we met. He was colder and sometimes completely ignored me. Malcolm asked me about it later that day.
"Did you two get in a fight or somethin'?"
"Who?"
"You and Angus, I've noticed his attitude lately." I shook my head.
"No I don't think so. If he's upset about something he hasn't told me."
"Hmm. Prolly just stress got him. With the holidays and the tour for the new album, and now with a new singer... it gets to him ya' know? Gets to all of us."
"I don't blame you."
"We'll see how he is after tomorrow. If he hasn't lightened up, we'll talk to him. Not like he'd tell us much anyway," Malcolm smiled.
Cliff and Georganne came back with the Christmas tree but only then did we realize we had nothing to decorate it with. "Crap, now what?" asked Cliff.
"Put some candy on the branches. Stuff that won't go bad," said Brian.
"Here use these." Ellen handed us a small plate with burnt cookies on it. "These ones got a little singed, you can hang them up."
"Does anyone know how to attach string to cookies?" Malcolm asked.
"I'll get the tape," Brian said. He came back with some tape and Phil got some string for us. We spent an hour taping the string to the burnt cookies and hanging them on the tree. We stepped back to view our finished work. It was-nice.
