Cell Phone || Marco Reus

Chapter 3: On Christmas Eve

It’s good to be home. Especially on Christmas Eve like this. Sara-Maria smiles as she looks at her mum who is talking to Aunt Karla talk about grandma’s roasted duck recipe. On her right her sisters are arguing—as always—about Alissa’s new boyfriend. She catches her dad’s eye and he smiles, before turning back to Uncle Björn (Aunt Karla’s husband) next to him and picking up the conversation where they left off. Her seven year-old twin cousins Elsa and Daria (Aunt Karla and Uncle Björn daughters) are busy with their kids’ tablets.

Everybody is in chatty mood, the room is filled with noise, but Sara-Maria doesn’t mind. She is used to it. It gives her a familiar feeling of being home. And it’s not that she doesn’t want to join the conversations; she just prefers to listen, she guesses. And she doesn’t want to interrupt them.

When it’s time to unwrap presents, everybody moves to the living room. Sara-Maria’s first present is a lovely blue scarf with ‘S’ embroidered on it. “Thanks, Aunt Karla, it’s lovely,” she says.

“Glad you like it, dear,” Aunt Karla replies with a smile.

Bea who sits next to Sara-Maria leans towards her and says in a low voice, “S for spoilsport.” Alissa, who is sat on Sara-Maria’s other side, laughs.

Sara-Maria merely gives her sisters a smile. Oh, it’s nothing new. They always call her that, because since they were children she never wanted to get involved in their various schemes. Bea had given their parents countless headaches, and she usually dragged Alissa into trouble with her. Although the latter got away with it most of the time because she’s the baby of the family, nobody can stay mad at her for more than five minutes.

Bea and Alissa get similar scarfs, with ‘B’ and ‘A’ on them. “B for bitch,” Alissa jokes, making Sara-Maria chuckle.

“And A is for agitating little shit,” Bea replies. Both Alissa and Sara-Maria laugh. Their parents, Aunt Karla and Uncle Björn say nothing; they just smile. They’re used to the banter between the sisters. There are only four years between the three of them.

The rest of Sara-Maria’s presents are four gift cards, a two-year subscription to National Geographic from Bea (“I still don’t get how you like that super boring magazine.”), and a pair of black, high heeled, leather, ankle boots from Alissa (“High heels always work, sis.”).

She is quite happy with her presents, they were like she expected. And gift cards are the best, because she can get whatever she wants from the shop. When she’s folding one of her wrapping papers (she’s the only one who does that, the others mostly crumple them), she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket. She retrieves it and sees that she’s got a text message, from an unknown number.

Curiously, she opens the message. It says: Merry Christmas. I hope you’re having a good time with your family. I certainly am with mine. Nico unwrapped my presents for me, told you he loves unwrapping presents – both his and others’. Love, Marco.

Her heart skips a beat. It’s Marco. He remembers her, even though he’s with his family.

“Since when do you have a Blackberry?” Bea’s voice snaps her back from her reverie. “Did you finally come to your senses and scrap your outdated Samsung?”

Yeah, she hasn’t told them about her phone. “My phone fell into the river because someone bumped into me. He then got me this one.”

“Why a Blackberry though? Why not an iPhone?” Alissa asks.

“Because it has a keypad,” Sara-Maria replies matter-of-factly. Both Alissa and Bea shake their head, while their mum lets out a smile.

“Your taste is so weird,” Bea says, sounding amused. “Not just in fashion,” she adds, teasingly.