‘But you cancelled your flights?’ I finally let go of my mum and dropped into a chair opposite, taking a sip of Dad’s tea. Good and sugary, just how we liked it. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘I didn’t cancel them,’ Dad admitted. ‘And I’m glad I didn’t. It’s bloody good to see you.’
‘It’s good to see you too,’ I said, trying to tidy up my hair. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’
‘Hmm,’ she nodded, utterly stoic. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m sorry about the message,’ I said as earnestly as possible. ‘It wasn’t OK. And I am glad that you’re here. We haven’t had Christmas together for ages, it’ll be nice to do it properly.’
‘As long as we’re not in the way,’ she sniffed. ‘I’d hate to put your majesty out.’
‘Annette.’ My dad gave her a look and a nudge. Incredibly brave on his part. ‘What did we agree?’
‘I’m just tired,’ she replied in her stiff, awkward voice. ‘But I’m glad I’m here.’
‘I’m glad you’re here too,’ I said, leaping back up for a second round of hugs. It was too early to ask if she would make her special roast potatoes for lunch tomorrow but I was hopeful. ‘I love you.’
‘Oh, get off,’ she half laughed, pushing me away. ‘Don’t make a scene.’
‘Why don’t you come home and go to bed?’ I suggested, straightening her scarf. ‘You should be resting.’
‘We’re going,’ Dad said, handing me another box, wrapped in gold paper just the same. ‘Alex asked us to meet you here and give you this. And, well, we wanted to give Louisa and Tim a bit of privacy.’
‘Tim is here?’
‘He came on our flight,’ Mum replied. ‘Alex sorted it all out apparently. Moved our flights so we could all come out together and then told us to meet you here. You didn’t know he was coming?’
‘I did not know he was coming,’ I confirmed. ‘Is he here? Alex?’
‘Oh no.’ Dad grinned and tapped his nose. ‘We cannot say a word.’
‘Honestly, I don’t know who’s worse, you or him,’ my mum said, picking up the cup of tea in front of her. ‘Can you believe this only came with lemon. Honestly, Angela, lemon. I had to ask for milk. Ask for it.’
I resisted the urge to shout That’s how they serve it here! and forced myself to remember that my parents were old, set in their ways and had only just got off a plane. Besides, I was too happy to see them to get annoyed. I felt another layer of stress melt right off me and I smiled.
‘You, madam, need to open that and be off on your travels,’ Dad said, patting the gold box and attached envelope. ‘I think you’ve got somewhere else to be.’
‘I hope it’s my bed,’ I replied, tearing into the envelope.
‘You’d think she’d been down the mine all day,’ Mum tutted. ‘It’s only seven o’clock. Midnight at home. And here we are, sat in a bloody café instead of putting our feet up on Christmas Eve.’
‘I’ll see you at home,’ I said, leaning over the table to kiss her on the cheek. Kissing was better than punching, I was sure. ‘Have you got keys?’
Dad nodded and gave me another hug. ‘Now get off before you’re late.’
‘Again,’ Mum added.
‘It is nice that it doesn’t matter how long goes by between our visits, you’re always yourself,’ I said. ‘Love you too, Mother.’
‘Oh, sod off,’ she muttered. ‘Let me drink my horrible tea in peace.’
Mustering up a smile, I headed back down the stairs and out into the snow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could not have been any happier to find three Max Brenner cookies inside the second box and had already inhaled half of one before I even opened the accompanying envelope.
‘Oh,’ I smiled, face covered in chocolate, lap covered in crumbs. ‘Rockefeller Plaza, please.’
The driver nodded in the rear-view mirror and pulled out into traffic, turning right onto 13th Street and then heading up Sixth Avenue. I sat back in the plush leather seat, enjoying the warm air blowing around my feet, and imagined for a moment how it must feel to be as rich as Cici. No wonder she considered me poor. I lived in Brooklyn, I bought clothes on sale, I worked because I had to, not just because I wanted to. I took the subway, ate two-dollar slices of pizza at three in the morning on my way home from a dive bar where the drinks were two for one all night … and I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything. I had no idea what her romantic status was but I had to assume it wasn’t terribly happy. Anyone getting laid regularly wouldn’t have the energy to put into making other people so incredibly unhappy. I wasn’t rich but I wasn’t poor and, most importantly, I was happy. And I had a cookie and an iPhone five as well, but all of those things were definitely related.
Rockefeller Plaza was almost forty blocks north of Union Square but most of the bad traffic was leaving the city and so I hopped out of the car on Sixth and 50th less than fifteen minutes later. I hastily chomped a piece of dried-out old chewing gum I’d found at the bottom of my poor, abused Marc Jacobs bag in an attempt to de-cookie myself, hoping that I was about to find Alex at the Rockefeller Christmas tree. It was, after all, where he had proposed two years ago. The plaza was busy. It seemed like every tourist in New York who wasn’t at the Christmas market on Union Square was lining up to ice skate but it wasn’t hard to spot the person waiting for me underneath the tree. It was never hard to spot Jenny Lopez.
She’d got changed since our excursion to Macy’s and was wrapped up in a bright pink wool coat, knee-high black leather boots on her feet and her hair tied up and away from her face to stop it frizzing out in the snow. And to show off her white fur earmuffs.
‘Jenny!’ I waved madly as I approached, a little worried by the scowl on her face. Maybe she was still mad with me? ‘Jen?’
‘Angie,’ she sighed and gave me a standard kiss on the cheek, pulling the earmuffs down and wrapping them around her neck. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You get hit on by crazies hanging out here on Christmas Eve.’
Relieved that the filthy look wasn’t for me, I kissed her back and held out my arms.
‘So what’s the deal here?’ I asked.
‘OK, so you need to get some skates, do three laps around the rink and then you’ll see your box is dangling from the tenth branch of the Christmas tree,’ she explained, laughing at the look of horror on my face. ‘Nah, I’m fucking with you. Here.’
She handed me another gold box. This was even smaller than the previous two. There was definitely no cookie inside this time.
‘Your husband is crazy,’ she said, punching me in the arm. ‘You lucky bitch.’
‘You’re the one who’s having a baby with a Hollywood actor,’ I replied, smiling. ‘That’s pretty lucky.’
‘Yeah, we’ll see,’ she shrugged. I started to raise my eyebrow but this wasn’t the time or the place. ‘Maybe.’
‘You’re both still coming for dinner tomorrow, yeah?’ I asked, slipping the box into my pocket. I could open it back in the car – there was some one-on-one Jenny time needed, no matter how brief.
‘I am,’ she said, poking my nose gently and smiling a smile that I knew was a complete cover-up. ‘Who knows where Mr Jacobs might be. He’s kind of unreliable.’
‘Kind of,’ I agreed. ‘Thank goodness you’re completely sane and entirely dependable at all times.’
‘Thank goodness,’ she agreed, setting her hands on my shoulders and pushing me away. ‘Now go, you have a date to keep.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ I called over my shoulder as I left. ‘I want you there to open presents.’
‘I’ll be there,’ she promised, slipping the earmuffs back over her ears. ‘Merry Christmas, Angie baby.’
The last box was so small that I couldn’t imagine what was inside. The directions on the letter told us to head towards 350 Fifth Avenue and even though I promised the driver this would be the last stop, he still sighed and turned the radio up a little louder as soon as I got in t
he car. I gave him half of my last cookie out of guilt and immediately regretted it when I saw him toss it onto the passenger seat. Bastard.
Inside box number three was what seemed to be a credit card. I turned it over again and again but there was nothing written on it, it was just a white plastic card with a black magnetic strip. It wasn’t anything special.
‘350 Fifth Avenue,’ the driver announced as the car stopped in the middle of a boring-looking block. ‘This is it.’
‘Really?’ I said, looking around. ‘Do you know which building it is?’
‘It’s the big one,’ he replied. ‘Goodnight, miss.’
I hopped out of the car, narrowly avoiding an extremely slushy puddle, and looked up. It was the big one. The biggest one in fact. It was the Empire State Building. I fingered the credit card, turning it over in my hand and shaking my head. I didn’t even want to know how he’d managed this or what was waiting for me. I just wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life. The before, the almost. The way my heart was beating even faster than the first time he’d brought me here and the way I always wanted to feel.
The attendant grinned when I walked through the door and showed me straight into a lift, passing all the crowds waiting in the queue.
‘Ms Clark.’ He held open the doors and pointed towards my key card. ‘That’s gonna take you right up to the eighty-sixth floor. No need to switch.’
‘Thank you.’ I knew I was blushing but I couldn’t help it. For the first time in an age, I was nervous about seeing Alex. Not because I’d ruined his favourite shirt at the laundrette, not because I’d eaten the last doughnut after promising I would leave it for him and not because I’d been an absolute moron and risked our relationship with my appalling interpersonal skills. Well, not just because of that. It felt like our first date all over again. It felt like the day he’d taken me out and shown me his city, only the last time it was so sunny I’d burned the back of my neck and this time it was so cold I could hear my own teeth chattering. I looked down at the hand holding the key card and saw my wedding and engagement rings. I supposed they made things different as well. It just didn’t feel like it sometimes.
The butterflies in my stomach were sorely tested by the speed of the express lift, and when I stepped out onto the eighty-sixth floor observatory, they had vertigo, travel sickness and were buzzing around as though I’d done nothing but drink coffee and eat sugary cookies all day. Oh, wait … but there was no time to be nervous. The crowds were sparse on the open-air terrace – it was snowing and temperatures were dipping below freezing after all, but everyone up there was so happy. All I could see were smiling faces and shining eyes. Christmas in New York did that to people. It was one of the reasons I loved the season and loved the city so much. But not nearly as much as I loved the man I saw leaning against the wall opposite me. Alex raised a bare hand and curved his lips into a smile, his hair highlighted with snow that sparkled red and green from the lights above.
‘Hey,’ he said as I approached, pulling me in close, his chest still warm even though he was only wearing a leather jacket. It was bitter this high up but Alex was never cold. He was always warm enough for both of us. ‘You found me.’
‘You sang Mariah for me,’ I whispered into his neck as I nestled my face under his chin. ‘This is amazing. You are amazing.’
‘It’s Christmas,’ he replied. ‘Miracles can happen.’
‘You are a miracle,’ I said, running my arms around his waist and rubbing my cold hands against the soft wool of his sweater. ‘I can’t believe you did this.’
‘I know things have been tough lately,’ he said, pressing his forehead against mine and kissing me lightly. ‘I wanted to remind you of some of the good times. How we got here in the first place. How I fell in love with you.’
‘I’ve never forgotten that,’ I promised, kissing him back harder, hoping that I could explain without words. ‘And I never will. I know I get caught up in other stuff and I know I clam up and don’t talk when I’m stressing out but I am always, always in love with you.’
‘I was pissed that you didn’t tell me about the doctor stuff,’ he admitted, pressing a hand against my cheek. ‘I was pissed that you were keeping it from me. And then I was pissed at myself for making you feel like you couldn’t tell me.’
‘Oh God, don’t.’ My blue eyes met his green ones and not a single sight in all of Manhattan could have torn them away. ‘It wasn’t that. I had to process it all first, that’s all. I know I can tell you anything. I was just being stupid.’
‘And you’ve made an appointment to see the doctor?’ he asked, brushing my hair away from my face, his fingers catching carefully in its snowy tangles. ‘And we’ll go together?’
‘Not yet,’ I admitted. ‘But today was something of a write-off. I will, on Thursday, I swear it.’
‘And you know it doesn’t matter what she says, right?’ Alex looked super serious for a moment. It didn’t happen that often so when those sleepy eyes were open and alert, I paid attention. ‘Because I already have everything I want. I had it from the day we met in that coffee shop. I knew it the day we came up here together and I knew it for sure the day I gave you that ring.’
I looked down at my engagement ring and bit my lip. The snow was already making my mascara work so hard, there was no need to push it to the limit with tears.
‘And what about Max Brenner’s?’ I asked.
‘Oh man, I just needed to send your folks some place,’ he laughed. ‘Get them out of the house.’
‘They’re here for a week,’ I reminded him. ‘I think they’ll be hanging out there a lot.’
He leaned over me, shielding me from the snow as it began to come down in big, heavy flakes, and pressed his lips against mine. His mouth was warm and familiar and the feeling in my stomach began to spread all over my body as I pulled him towards me, standing on my tiptoes to get as close as humanly possible to the man I loved.
‘If you carry on like that we’re gonna get arrested,’ he said in a low, broken voice as he pulled away. ‘Save it till we get home.’
‘How about the cab on the way home?’ I replied, grabbing his collar and pulling him back into me. ‘Home seems very far away.’
‘You’re all talk, Angela Clark,’ Alex said, the same longing in his words that I felt in myself. It seemed as though it had been a long time since we’d been together. ‘Let’s get out of here so I can give you your real present.’
‘You do mean we’re going home to do it, don’t you?’ I asked as he took my hand and led me back towards the lifts. ‘Because a girl’s got needs.’
‘Yes, that’s what I meant,’ he said, shaking his head as we went. ‘We’re going home to “do it”. You and your romantic soul.’
‘One of a kind,’ I said, poking myself in the chest. ‘They don’t make them like this anymore.’
‘They really don’t,’ he replied. ‘Thank God.’
Christmas Day was exactly what Christmas Day was supposed to be.
Grace woke us all up far too early and when she jumped on top of me at six a.m., I was thankful that Alex had remembered to put his underwear back on after our late-night stealth sex session. Louisa and Tim emerged from the makeshift guestroom in the basement holding hands and looking incredibly awkward but clearly we weren’t going to be having any epic conversations while my mother was marching around insulting my selection of vegetables and preheating the oven to nuke the turkey.
While me and Lou helped Grace open her pile of presents, my dad poured the boys an Irish coffee while my mum wasn’t looking, and pretty soon everyone had a bacon sandwich in one hand (except for me who was a third of the way into a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, as was tradition) and a drink in the other. Once the mountain of presents Grace had managed to amass were open and strewn across the apartment, Alex allowed us all to open one gift each, having been brought up by abusive parents who only let him open his presents after lunch. I sat impatiently, watching everyone else ‘o
oh’ and ‘aah’ over their gifts while trying to select the most likely-looking box under the tree. I picked the gift bag that contained a six-pack of knickers from M&S and three pairs of black opaque tights. I was not amused. After making the usual complaints when I turned on the TV, insisting that Christmas was family time and we didn’t need the ‘goggle box’ on, Mum eventually piped down when I gave her the latest James Bond on DVD and told her she could put it on while we all got showered and dressed in our nice clothes.
While some quiet time might have been what I wanted, it wasn’t what I needed. The idea of lounging around on the sofa with nothing better to do than annoy Alex all day long still sounded pretty great, but nothing could have made me happier than seeing my dad bouncing Grace on his knee while my mum and Alex, both resplendent in aprons Mum had brought from home, argued over whether or not to cut tiny crosses into the bottom of the sprouts before boiling them.
It was a proper Clark family Christmas.
Or at least it was until Jenny, Craig, Graham and James arrived with a bottle of tequila and a half-eaten pizza. According to Jenny, it was a Lopez family tradition but if it was, it was the first I’d ever heard of it. Not that a little thing like bullshit stopped me from taking a shot, obviously. Almost eight hours after the turkey had been brined, basted, cooked, carved and then microwaved out of my mother’s sight to get rid of any red bits, and our new dining table was covered in nothing but remains of the carnage that had been Christmas dinner, we left Mum with her two favourite Jameses – Bond and Jacobs – and let Dad pass out on the sofa while the rest of us headed out for a post-lunch stroll-slash-drink.
‘Everything’s all right then?’ I asked Louisa as we climbed the stone staircase. ‘With you and Tim?’
‘I wouldn’t say all right,’ she said, sniffling a little from the cold. ‘But he isn’t cheating. He is mates with that girl who’s been texting him and I’m not convinced she’s not having a go at him but he says she’s got a boyfriend and she’s just one of the lads and there’s nothing to worry about. But he did admit he’s been a bit shit lately.’