I Heart Christmas

  ‘Spoken like a true hipster.’

  No reply. Typical bloke – he could dish it out but he couldn’t take it.

  I rolled my head against the sticky black leather seats and squinted at him through the very strong prescription lenses. ‘You still there? I can’t see a bloody thing.’

  ‘I’m still here,’ he replied, removing his glasses carefully, his face awfully close to mine. ‘I’m always here.’

  ‘In the cab?’

  Jesse didn’t make any attempt to back up and all of a sudden I did not feel brilliant about being in the back of a taxi with my friend.

  ‘Hey, look,’ he said, pulling a bit of wiry-looking twig out of his pocket and holding it up. ‘Mistletoe.’

  There wasn’t time for a snarky comment, vocal protestation or even a timely slap. Before I could react in any way, shape or form, Jesse’s lips were on mine, the mistletoe still in his lap. My first thought was to get his face off my face. My second that he wasn’t even doing this right. Amateur.

  ‘Jesse.’ I regained control of my faculties and gave him a good old-fashioned shove as we turned onto Delancey and caught sight of the Williamsburg Bridge ahead, lit up like a string of fairy lights stretched over the river. A beautiful backdrop for some unexpected sexual harassment and impending violence. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I’ve got mistletoe?’ He held up the offending bit of weed and wore the face of a saint. ‘It’s Christmas.’

  I snatched the mistletoe out of his hand and lobbed it out of the cab window, the taxi whizzing away as it spiralled into the river. It wasn’t even really mistletoe, it was just a bit of branch with a white flower on it. I was appalled. At the act and the fraud. How dare he take Christmas’s name in vain?

  ‘It’s never OK to kiss your married friend on the lips, mistletoe or otherwise.’ I was well aware I was raising my voice but this was surely a lesson that would benefit everyone, including the cab driver. ‘You know I’m married. You can’t possibly be that drunk?’

  ‘But we hang out all the time,’ he spluttered. ‘And you always reply to my texts and you laugh at my jokes in meetings and we like the same stuff and you get me. No one else gets me.’

  ‘I’m not getting you right now.’ I slapped his approaching hand right back to the other side of the taxi. ‘And I reply to your texts and I laugh at your jokes because you’re funny and I’m polite and … Jesus Christ, is that really all it takes?’

  ‘You get me,’ he said again. ‘I think it’s because you’re British. I’ve always felt really connected to British people.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I groaned, palm to face. ‘You did not just say that.’

  ‘And your husband didn’t come to the show and you kissed me at the bar, remember?’ He wasn’t going to give up, even though the cabbie had already turned the radio up to full blast. Even he wasn’t interested anymore. ‘You kissed me first.’

  ‘I did not kiss you at the bar,’ I shouted. There was a worry some people in New Jersey hadn’t heard my indignation. ‘I turned and you turned and … oh God, don’t be stupid. Of course I didn’t kiss you at the bar. I cannot believe you just did that.’

  I shook my head at the insanity and held my hands out in front of me to ward off any further madness. For five more minutes, we drove on without saying anything, turning onto Bedford Avenue, our silence soundtracked by an ironic cover version of ‘Away in a Manger’. Oh brilliant, the universe wanted to play me Christmas songs altogether too late to save the evening. Eventually we pulled up at the corner of Bedford and N7th and even though it was past one and tiny snowflakes were starting to fall from the thick purple sky, the streets were littered with those too cool to care about the temperature. I’d seen heavier coats on girls out in Newcastle. Jesse coughed a small, embarrassing cough when the taxi driver turned to see what was going on. The bagel shop was right outside but I wasn’t in the mood anymore. I was so angry, I wasn’t hungry. Shit had got real.

  ‘Get out the taxi,’ I said, exhausted and embarrassed and in need of my bed.

  ‘Are we still getting bagels?’ he asked in a small voice.

  ‘No, we are not still getting bagels,’ I replied as evenly as I could. ‘I mean, you can get a bagel, I can’t stop you. I’m going home.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, opening the door and letting a rush of bitter air into the car. As if the atmosphere wasn’t frosty enough already. ‘I misread the situation.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘And I’ve been drinking.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’

  ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’

  Jesse tousled his hair away and readjusted his glasses for full hangdog effect. If I hadn’t been sat on my hands just to stop myself from punching him, I might have been moved to feel sorry for him. But I was, so I didn’t.

  ‘Are you gonna fire me?’ he asked.

  I opened my mouth to tell him not to be an idiot and that of course I wasn’t going to fire him, mostly because I didn’t think I actually had that much executive power, but instead I took a deep breath, looked at the tragic figure who was causing me to freeze half to death and gave him my best death stare. ‘I’ll see you on Monday, Jesse.’

  Mary wasn’t even officially gone for another two days and already the power had gone to my head.

  ‘Can you drop me at Kent and N8th, please?’ I said to the driver. All I wanted was to go home, take a shower, eat several biscuits and pretend the entire evening had never happened. No Cici, no Jesse, no distinct lack of mince pies and definitely no kiss.

  ‘Angela, really, I’m sorry.’ Jesse quickly grabbed the door as I reached over to slam it shut. If I hadn’t been furious with him, I’d have been quite impressed. It was all very climactic movie scene, but I totally could have broken his hand. And I did have a precedent in that. ‘I was drunk, I was stupid. It was nothing but a Christmas party fuck-up.’

  ‘Oh, now it’s a Christmas party,’ I replied, letting him close the door since he wasn’t even offering to pay for the taxi. Twat.

  Seething, I sat back in the seat as the driver gunned the engine, waiting for the lights to change. This was how a grown-up would deal with something like this, I told myself. They would be an adult and be restrained and not give in to the urge for physical violence. I tapped my fingers on my knee, shaking with overwhelming waves of pissed-offedness mixed with unavoidable English guilt and unmistakable Angela awkwardness.

  Oh, fuck it.

  Before Jesse could vanish from sight, I leaned out the window, watching my breath fog up in front of my nose.

  ‘Oi, Jesse,’ I shouted into the semi-crowded street. ‘You’re a complete tosser. Merry bloody Christmas.’

  And then I felt a bit better.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Hey, you awake?’

  I groaned, rolling onto my side and shaking my head as much as I dared for the fear of puking.

  ‘No,’ I replied, curling my legs up underneath me. ‘I’m asleep.’

  ‘We’re going back to the apartment to get the last of the boxes.’ I opened my eyes to see Alex’s knees in front of my face, followed by his hair, followed by his face. He really was due a trim. ‘You want to start unpacking the kitchen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to lie on the floor and sulk about being hungover?’

  ‘I’m not hungover.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He was putting a polite face on things but I knew Alex was mad at me. Really, really mad. But he was also wrong – I really wasn’t hungover. I hadn’t been even slightly drunk when I got home from the party but I had been angry. Too angry to sleep. And so, instead of waking him up and telling him all about it, I had paced around the living room for a couple of hours, packed a few boxes and eventually passed out on the sofa after necking several disgusting shots of whiskey somewhere around four a.m. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time – I would drink myself into a visit from the sandman, I
wouldn’t wake up my husband with my psychosis and I would empty a bottle that then wouldn’t need packing. But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.

  It turned out, what I considered to be excellent wife-ing, Alex considered shitty moving-day behaviour. But given that Graham and Craig had been on our doorstep at the crack of dawn and we’d been shifting boxes and furniture and huge fir trees for the last six and a half hours, there hadn’t been a good time to sit him down and say, Hey, baby, so that bloke in the office who I’m really good mates with? He snogged me in a cab last night! Oh! And before I forget, there’s a sniff of a chance I might not be able to have kids. Ta-da! I imagined this would be best framed with a cheesy grin and a double thumbs up.

  And it definitely didn’t feel like a conversation to have while Grace screamed bloody murder at being strapped in her pushchair and shipped off to Aunt Jenny’s with her mum when all she really wanted to do was climb on top of all the moving boxes and throw herself onto the sofa, repeatedly. And I couldn’t say I felt inspired to begin the debate when I was squeezed in between Craig and Graham while Alex drove us to our fantastic new apartment. The BQE was an upsetting bit of road at the best of times, all potholes and super-narrow lanes occupied by angry taxi drivers, and Alex was not a patient driver. Switching lanes every four seconds for twenty minutes was not good for someone with a stomach full of whiskey sitting in a car full of smelly boys. Well, to be fair it was only Craig that smelled, having not taken a shower, his reasoning being that moving would only make him smell more. And so we had started our first day in our new home with a fun undercurrent of passive-aggressive behaviour and a smelly man hauling boxes. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

  Given all of that, I could sort of understand why Alex was not ecstatic at finding me flat on my back, hidden amongst a cardboard city of moving boxes, pale, sweaty and generally pathetic. All he saw was a woman who had gone to her office Christmas party, had a few too many and failed to take into consideration that she had to move house the next day. Craig on the other hand had seemed quite impressed but that wasn’t exactly an honour I wore with pride. I waited for the door to slam shut – our new neighbours must have been chuffed to monkeys at our arrival – and pulled out my phone, stretching out onto my back again and taking comfort from the fact that this was the only day of my life that I would be happy the heating wasn’t on yet. The freezing cold floorboards were the only thing keeping the contents of my stomach where they were. I should have just got hammered, at least then I’d understand why I felt so awful. Guilt, exhaustion and misplaced rage left me feeling just as disgusting but without the added benefit of a ‘poor me’ attitude.

  In an attempt to be a Good Daughter, I held my phone aloft and snapped a picture of the new and unpacked kitchen, adding the caption ta-da before sending it to my mother. We had a tap exclusively for filtered water. I had finally made it. She would be so impressed. So impressed in fact that she felt the need to call me not thirty seconds later. I stared at the word ‘home’ lighting up my borrowed iPhone’s screen and considered my options. Red button, green button. Red button, green button.

  She’ll only bloody ring back, I told myself, squinting with one eye and prodding the green button with great reluctance. I got it on the second try and was inordinately pleased with myself.

  ‘Well.’

  She obviously wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

  ‘Hello?’ I wondered how easy it would be to find the kettle, already fully aware that it would not be at all easy to find the kettle. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh.’ Annette was not in a good mood. ‘That’s all you’ve got to say? How are you?’

  ‘Was there something else?’ I asked. ‘Have they changed it since I was last home?’

  ‘Don’t come calling me with nothing but cheek after what you’ve done, young lady. I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to pick up the phone.’

  ‘But you called me?’ Now I was completely confused. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know if you were honestly hoping I was going to ignore the little message you left on the phone the other night or you were actually so very drunk that you don’t remember it.’ Her voice was stiff but loud. ‘And if that is the case, then I am as worried as I am disappointed.’

  Disappointed? She was disappointed in me? I hadn’t heard her this genuinely angry with me since I lied about having a house party when they were on holiday and then she found dozens of empty beer cans on the roof of the garage. Stupid sixth-form boys.

  ‘Mum, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I wondered how many times I’d need to bash the back of my skull against these lovely oak floorboards before I rendered myself unconscious. ‘Unless I’ve got an evil twin, I haven’t spoken to you since you called to say you were coming for Christmas.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you consider leaving a drunk message the same thing as talking to me, do you?’ she went on. ‘Didn’t even have the decency to call us when we’d be awake. If your father hadn’t checked the 141 thing … But don’t you worry, we’ll be cancelling the flights. Don’t want to let a little thing like Christmas with your family get in the way of getting Jenny an “awesome” present or all that terribly important “shit” you have “going on”.’

  Somewhere in the back of my mind something began to rattle and it wasn’t something good. While my mum’s voice positively dripped with sarcasm, it did sound a bit like something I might say but not quite.

  ‘Are you still there?’ she asked. ‘Or are you busy doing that “shit” right now? I’m sure you’re far too busy to talk.’

  ‘Right, I can tell you’re upset,’ I said, wishing I’d had more than three hours’ sleep. Or that I had drunk more whiskey. ‘But I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The message you left on the phone on Wednesday night,’ Mum answered. ‘Not that I could hardly tell it was you for the terrible American accent. Is that how you talk when you’re with these friends of yours now?’

  ‘But Wednesday I was at Erin’s party and–’ What little blood had managed to circulate all the way up to my face drained right away. ‘Oh.’

  Jenny. I thought she was just pretending to call my parents. Oh, fuck a festive duck.

  ‘Oh?’ She was not amused by my reaction. ‘That’s the best you’ve got?’

  ‘Mum, I can explain,’ I started, without any sort of explanation to back up the statement. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  If it was good enough for Shaggy, it was good enough for me.

  ‘It wasn’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Then who was it?’

  Aah. Now this presented another problem. My mum loved Jenny. ‘Loved’ actually wasn’t a strong enough word for the warm and fuzzy feelings my parents expressed when presented with their beloved La Lopez, and even if I threw her under the bus on this one, they were unlikely to believe me.

  ‘Someone with an American accent?’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Angela. I’ve never heard such a fake accent in my entire life.’

  I did not foresee a successful career for my mother in forensics.

  ‘Look, it really wasn’t me and I’m very sorry. I feel awful,’ I said with one hundred per cent authenticity. ‘But I was a bit surprised when you said you were coming, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, so now we’ll get to the bottom of it,’ she snapped. ‘It wasn’t you but you really don’t want us to come.’ She lowered her voice into a stage whisper. ‘Your father is devastated. Devastated.’

  ‘What’s that, love?’ I heard a very undevastated-sounding Dad call from the other room.

  ‘And don’t you worry, we’ve cancelled the flights. We’re far too busy doing “shit” to come all the way out to New York just to see you.’

  Oh GOD. I didn’t know what to say to make things better. I didn’t know what to say to stop my mum from swearing again. It was freaking me out.

  ‘So you get back t
o your house and your friends and your job and we’ll pretend we hadn’t gone to all that trouble and expense. And remind your dad that we didn’t need to come all the way to America anyway because no matter how much we miss you, our only child, especially at Christmas, you’re far too busy to miss us.’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Don’t Mum me. I’m going, James Bond is on.’

  Nothing came between my mother and a lecherous old Scotsman.

  It was never a good sign when my mum hung up on me and it was never a good sign when I felt like I was going to throw up immediately after a phone call. Given that I was dealing with both of those things at that exact second, I had to assume things were now, in fact, completely buggered. I let my hands drop onto my belly, still clutching my hot, clammy phone. What I’d give for a lovely, room-temperature, flat Diet Pepsi and a greasy slice of pizza.

  Maybe, I wondered quietly to myself, Alex would be less mad at me if they got back with the rest of the boxes and pizza was waiting for them. Maybe he would think it was a thoughtful act and not an entirely self-serving puke-avoidance tactic. I picked up the phone again and swiped at the screen until I found the Grub Hub app – until I had my new iPhone, I was working on very limited app selection and while I didn’t have Facebook on here yet, I did already have three different food delivery services. Hmm. If only I actually knew our address.

  Since pizza wasn’t going to magically arrive and solve all my problems, I skipped back to the call screen and redialled Mum’s number. It rang through to voicemail. I tried again. Nothing. On the third attempt, just as I was about to give up and get on a plane back to England to try and explain, my dad answered.

  ‘Dad, it’s me, don’t hang up. I’m sorry. It’s all a big misunderstanding and I’m sorry and please tell Mum not to be mad at me.’

  ‘Oh, Angela,’ he said with a big, fatherly sigh that made me feel worse than anything my mum had said. ‘She’s in a real temper this time. You shouldn’t have left it so long to call.’

  ‘But I didn’t know about the message,’ I protested. ‘Which I know doesn’t make a lot of sense but it really wasn’t me. It was someone else. I thought they were having a laugh.’