I Heart Christmas

  For the want of an avuncular gay mentor, I let Delia drag me out for lunch. Even though I really wasn’t supposed to be out of the office on press day, I really needed to update her on Cici’s nervous breakdown. It was only fair.

  ‘I can’t believe how long it’s been since we went out for lunch.’ Delia speared a piece of lettuce and munched away happily, as though it was real food. ‘Hasn’t it been ages?’

  I nodded in agreement, and shovelled a mouthful on quinoa down my throat, wishing I hadn’t ordered quinoa. One day I would learn not to order something just because I’d seen Jamie Oliver going on about it. It was horrible. We’d settled on The Breslin for our powwow which was always a bit more trendy than I wanted it to be. It was the kind of place that said ‘totally come in jeans!’ but then when you came in jeans it raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘oh, you came in jeans.’ But it was far enough away that there wouldn’t be anyone else from the magazine there, yet close enough that I could escape without being missed. Plus, the food was delicious. As long as you didn’t have the quinoa.

  ‘I’m so glad you were able to sneak away,’ Delia said as the waiter refilled our water glasses with impressive stealth. ‘It’s like we never have time for each other anymore. Hanging out with you was the best thing about Gloss, it really was, not that I’m not really excited about the new role. I’m really excited. But I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Yeah, I didn’t think I’d see you before the Christmas party,’ I said, eyeing the bar for celebs. There was a man who looked a bit like Michael Fassbender three tables over but when he stood up he was so short that if it was Michael Fassbender, I didn’t want to know. Why kill the dream?

  ‘Holiday party,’ Delia corrected me. ‘Non-religious.’

  I pouted but said nothing, persevering with my grains.

  ‘But I’ll be there. I’m glad you’re coming. I never know anyone I actually want to hang out with and I have to go because Grandpa would go crazy if he heard I didn’t go, even though he never goes, but still he expects me to go which is complete double standards, you know?’

  If my food hadn’t been so bloody awful, I might not have noticed that Delia was rambling. I stopped chewing for a moment and tried not to freak out. Delia was nervous. Delia was never nervous. What was going on?

  ‘The exec floor is really dull,’ she carried on, sipping water quickly and then punching her fork into yet more lettuce. ‘I don’t think they’re even doing secret Santa. Isn’t that awful? Grandpa says I’ll get used to it but I don’t know … Maybe it is too soon, maybe I don’t have the experience. I suppose we’ll see. How’s your appetiser?’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ I said, with fear in my heart. Whatever was going on, I really wanted to know before my main course arrived because if I was getting fired, I was changing my order to the burger and getting a cocktail while I still had a company credit card. ‘Delia, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Why would anything be wrong?’ she asked in a voice so high pitched it hurt my ears. ‘I’m just a little stressed. That’s all it is.’

  Now I knew she was lying. Delia Spencer had never been stressed in her entire life. She was so in control, I had wondered more than once if she wasn’t actually some sort of media magnate cyborg, created by her grandfather to take over the family business. The only evidence to the contrary was her sister. Oh. Fuckity fuck. Of course, her sister.

  ‘Delia,’ I put down my fork. If she was going to say what I thought she was going to say, I was in for enough punishment, I didn’t need to suffer through another mouthful of superfood. ‘Is this about Cici coming in yesterday?’

  She pursed her lips, looked down into her lap and nodded.

  ‘You mean your new assistant, Cici?’ she asked with unwarranted optimism.

  ‘You can’t mean it?’ I asked. She couldn’t. I hadn’t had a memo about everyone in the world going completely insane so this must just be a very, very late April Fool’s joke.

  For a moment, there was an awkward silence at the table that had never existed between me and Delia before. I waited for her to laugh and tell me she was taking the piss and of course she didn’t genuinely expect me to have her clinically insane identical twin working on our magazine, on our baby, that we had fought so hard for, but she didn’t. She just sat there, pushing some sad little leaves around her plate and waiting for me to say something else. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  ‘I know everything you’re thinking,’ she said after realising that I wasn’t going to speak. ‘And you’re completely within your rights. I know it seems crazy to even think about having Cici around after, well, after everything.’

  ‘Can I get you ladies anything?’ An overly chirpy waitress in a shirt and tie appeared behind Delia.

  ‘Do you have anything that’s like a cosmo?’ I asked, unable to take my eyes off Delia. ‘Doesn’t have to be a cosmo but is definitely as strong as a cosmo?’

  ‘Uh, sure,’ she replied, with almost as much fear in her eyes as there was in mine. ‘Anything for you?’

  ‘Whatever you get for her,’ Delia muttered, throwing back her water in preparation for something harder hitting her stomach.

  ‘Two cosmos then,’ the waitress replied, backing away as fast as she could. Sharp instincts. She’d go far.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but my heart was racing and I had a really bitter taste in my mouth. It could have been the quinoa but I was fairly certain it was just straight-up bile.

  ‘It’s going to sound dumb,’ Delia said, resting her elbows on the table and wiping her hands over her face, ‘but she really has changed.’

  ‘Because she spent a month at a spa in India and got a dodgy hair wrap?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, pulling on her ponytail. ‘And maybe because Grandpa threatened to cut her off if she doesn’t get another job.’

  ‘So make her your assistant if you want her around so badly.’ I was trying, but failing, not to squeak when I spoke. ‘She’ll be putting anthrax in my cappuccino within a week.’

  ‘Don’t you breathe in anthrax?’ she asked, reaching for her phone to Google it.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ I yelled, slapping the phone out of her hand. ‘There’s no other job in the entire company, the entire Spencer Media empire, that you can shove her in? I don’t believe it for a second.’

  ‘Of course there is,’ Delia replied. ‘But she wants to work at Gloss. We sat down and talked and I genuinely, genuinely think she’s changed. And for what it’s worth, I think she feels guilty about all the stuff she did to you, and to us. I’ll keep an eye on her, I’ll make sure she’s not up to anything, you have my word.’

  ‘You can’t babysit your psycho sister while you’re running a publishing company,’ I sighed as it dawned on me that I wasn’t getting a say in this. The deal was as good as done. ‘I just can’t believe you’re doing this to the magazine.’

  ‘There are two ways to look at it.’ Delia’s cheeks were red from embarrassment. I hated that she felt so uncomfortable, hated putting her in a position where she was torn between work, friendship and family. Unfortunately, I hated her sister more so she was just going to have to get used to it. ‘There is a chance that I’m right, that she isn’t lying and has finally woken up to what a total bitch she used to be. In which case, she’s really smart and she’s going to be an asset to the company. She’s a good assistant, she’s super smart, she kicks ass and she looks after her own.’

  ‘Because she’s always been so wonderful to you,’ I said, arms folded, bottom lip out, the full grumpy chops.

  ‘I was never her own,’ she admitted. ‘But she’s loyal to her friends and you have first-hand experience of how far she’ll go when she’s committed to achieving something. Maybe we’ll be able to use her power for good?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I nodded. ‘Can I just use your phone to check if Hell has frozen over?’

  ‘The other way to look at it is this,’ Delia said, ignoring me. Probably rightly so. ‘My grandpa is eventu
ally going to cave and give her a job. Would you rather it’s the job she says she wants, in a place where you can keep an eye on her and have the whole staff keep her in check? Or would you rather she was somewhere else in the business, pissed off that you – in her eyes – have screwed her over again and dedicating every moment that she could be answering your phone to destroying your career?’

  Well, when she put it like that …

  ‘You’re going to make me hire Cici as my assistant,’ I said, hardly believing the words as they came out of my mouth.

  ‘I’m not going to make you do anything,’ Delia replied. ‘Because I’m not an asshole. But it’s genuinely the best idea I have come up with. I’ve been over it a thousand different ways and I can’t think of a better solution. I know you don’t trust her and I don’t expect you to. It’s hard enough for me to give her another chance but really, I do believe she’s different.’

  ‘I know, she’s been to India and has forgotten to get her nails done.’ So this was how it felt to be backed into a corner. ‘She’s an entirely different person.’

  ‘She’s been volunteering,’ Delia lowered her voice as though she were telling me a terrible secret. ‘At the park. With old people. She hates old people. Honestly, it’s freaking me out. That’s one of the reasons I want her somewhere I can keep an eye on her. At first I thought she might have hit her head or something but it seems to be sticking.’

  ‘So it’s not just that she’s got an inexplicable vindictive streak just for me,’ I asked, making sure I had my mad ducks in a row. ‘You now think she’s actually psycho?’

  Delia looked pained. But not pained enough to throw herself on the floor and beg my forgiveness. Why hadn’t I just hired Tessa or Blair or Serena van der Woodsen when I had the chance?

  ‘If I do this,’ I said, thankful for the massive pink cocktail that was set down in front of me as I raised my hand and started counting off conditions on my fingers, ‘and I do mean if, there’s a trial period, she actually has to come into the office every day and do work, she’s not allowed to spit in, on or around me, or anything I might consume.’

  ‘I mean, it sounds reasonable,’ Delia nodded. ‘She really does have the potential to be so good. She worked for Mary for an age and you know how tough she can be.’

  I did know how tough Mary could be. I also knew she had never arranged to have an entire suitcase of borrowed and slavishly saved up for designer clothes – not to mention one very special pair of Louboutins – blown up by French airport security for shits and giggles.

  ‘And you know, she didn’t suggest this, I did, so it’s not part of a plan.’ She took a tiny sip of her cocktail, politely ignoring the fact I had already almost finished mine. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Which is just what she would say if it was part of a plan,’ I replied.

  ‘But you’ll give her a shot?’ Delia asked, her eyes sparkling ever so slightly. From hope or booze, I wasn’t sure.

  ‘I suppose I’d better get used to the taste of laxatives in my tea,’ I nodded, resigned, reluctant and terrified. ‘Might help me lose a couple of Christmas pounds.’

  ‘Hey Angela.’

  I wouldn’t normally be so surprised to hear a man’s voice shouting my name but since I was hiding in the ladies’, trying to find the strength to put on a brave face after lunch with Delia, it was a bit of a shock.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Angela, you in there?’

  ‘I’ll be out in a second,’ I shouted back, stashing the second finger of a Twix back in its wrapper and down into the deepest, darkest depths of my handbag. Eating chocolate in the toilets really was a new low but then so was hiring Cici to be my assistant. ‘Give me a minute.’

  ‘Great, I’ll put the beauty pages on your desk.’

  Another fun fact I had just found out about press day – I couldn’t even go to the toilets without Jesse, our managing editor, hunting me down like a dog. God help me if he found out I’d actually left the premises for lunch, let alone had a drink.

  Most of the time I liked Jesse. He was the same age as me, lived in Williamsburg and knew all the words to Taylor Swift’s latest album, even though he played guitar in an indie band and looked like a super hipster. And because he worked on a women’s fashion magazine, he knew an awful lot more about nail varnish than your average bloke. If he’d been gay, he’d have been my gay best friend. Since he was sadly straight, he’d had to settle for the role of my work husband, meaning that it was his responsibility to bring me snacks whenever he left the office and make sure I was never without the latest Game of Thrones-inspired meme. Aside from his general, personal qualifications, it was hard to find a good managing editor and I was delighted when Mary had managed to lure him away from the low-paying but high-credibility music paper he’d been working on to come to Gloss. You really had to have a mental imbalance to love being a managing ed, all that time spent checking and correcting and making sure no one had snuck any dirty acrostic poems into the feature articles or teeny tiny penises into celebrity fashion spreads. Not that anyone in our team would do that. Except for maybe me. And Jesse genuinely loved it.

  Back at my desk, surrounded by every Christmas card the office had received, some delightful fluffy reindeers I’d picked up at Target and several Alexander Skarsgård posters, I stared down at the beauty pages, willing myself to read every single word, to see each syllable and to start caring about what eyeliner Selena Gomez was wearing this week. It wasn’t Selena’s fault. Usually I’d be thrilled to know that she mostly used MAC but that I could achieve the same effect with Maybelline (even though I knew you couldn’t really) but I had a lot on my mind. Jenny and her baby banter seemed like something that had happened a million years ago and the new house in all its leafy Park Slope glory would be something I worried about when we actually had to move. In four days. Right now, I had enough on my plate. I had to work out how to work with Cici without either killing her or inciting her to kill me. Maybe if I sent back all my Christmas presents and just asked for one little miracle instead …

  My office phone, appropriately wrapped in silver tinsel, rang quietly, as if afraid to interrupt my review of Jennifer Aniston’s best and worst hair days.

  ‘Hello?’

  I hated not being able to see who was calling, I thought as I answered. There was something so threatening about answering the phone not knowing who it was. Of course, I could have just peeled the Twilight stickers off my phone so I could see the screen but that would have been too easy.

  ‘Angela, it’s your mother.’

  Aah. Because so far, today had been far too easy.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’ I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping it would calm me. It didn’t. I had no idea why people did that. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ she replied in a voice that implied that was, in fact, not the case. ‘I was just wondering if you’d heard from Louisa this week?’

  ‘No,’ I said, sitting up straight. ‘I’ve been trying to call her but she’s busy. Why? What’s wrong? Is she OK?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she’s fine,’ Mum said. ‘Not that I’d know, she never comes round with that baby.’

  ‘Well, she’s probably busy taking it to see her mother and not mine,’ I replied. ‘Or doing, you know, stuff.’

  ‘No need to be snippy,’ she sniffed. ‘So, you haven’t heard? It hasn’t been on the Facebook?’

  ‘Has what been on the Facebook?’

  It was sometimes quite difficult not to lose my patience with her.

  ‘Well, her next door told me and she said she’d heard it from Janet who works in the hairdresser’s but you know what she can be like.’ My mum took a sharp breath and the phone line crackled with silence for a second. And then she started again. ‘So I don’t know whether it’s true or not. But that’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘You don’t know what is true or not?’ I asked. At least she was right about one thing – her next door was a right ol
d cow.

  ‘That Mark and that Katie are having a baby.’

  Oh. Mark, my ex-boyfriend, my ex-fiancé, and ‘that Katie’, better known as the blonde tart he cheated on me with. They were having a baby.

  ‘Well, that sounds very nice for them, Mum,’ I said, pulling at the ends of my hair and trying my best not to care. ‘Did they say when?’

  ‘You don’t sound very bothered.’ My mother had clearly expected more of her only child. Maybe some oohs and aahs or even a few tears. And she might have got them if I hadn’t already had such an incredibly shite day. ‘I haven’t forgotten him showing up here on your wedding day.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ I really didn’t have enough emotional mileage to deal with this non-bombshell. A man I’d broken up with nearly four years ago was having a baby with a woman he’d been involved with for, well, more than four years. Unfortunate maths aside, I really didn’t feel that affected.

  ‘He shows up at your wedding, causes a scene and then just goes and has a baby with someone else willy-nilly?’ Mum said in disbelief. ‘And you don’t care?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. And I didn’t. Part of me wanted to but that part was busy working out what it would do the first time Cici left a rat in my desk drawer. The rest of me was fully aware that I had a really rather spectacular husband of my own at home, so meh.