‘I’m sorry …’ I tugged on the end of my ponytail. Bad daughter. ‘It’s late where you are so I was worried.’
‘I’m sorting out the turkey,’ she explained, rattling the oven door to verify her story. ‘And I’ve got all the kids coming tomorrow so I thought I’d call now before things get busy. I’m sure you’ve got very exciting plans over there.’
‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘Just lunch with Amy and everyone.’
‘Hmm,’ Mum replied. ‘Doesn’t sound much like Christmas to me.’
‘You should see it, Mum,’ I said, looking out the window in the front door. ‘It’s all snowy and pretty and there are lights everywhere, people ringing bells. It’s really nice.’
‘Sounds like it would give me a migraine,’ she sniffed. ‘Lesley from the newsagent’s didn’t like it when she went. Too loud, she said. Filthy as well.’
‘Filthy dirty?’ I asked. ‘Or filthy dirty?’
‘You know very well what I mean, Tess Brookes.’ I heard the oven door slam shut. ‘Well, as long as you’re all right. We will miss you.’
‘You will?’ I asked, surprised. Mum and I didn’t always get along terribly well. Or at all. ‘Mum, are you dying?’
‘Have I got to be dying to say something nice now?’
‘Well, yeah, sort of,’ I replied. ‘I mean, I’ll miss you too. It’ll be weird doing Christmas without you.’
‘No one does Christmas the same as your family,’ she said with sage wisdom. ‘Won’t be the same no matter where you are. How’s the photo thing going?’
If there was one person who was really upset about me being made redundant from Donovan & Dunning, it was my mother. We’d barely spoken since I told her I wasn’t looking for a new office job, but when we had, it was mostly so she could remind me I wasn’t married, didn’t have any children and was wasting my time on a hobby instead of looking for a proper job and a husband, the most important factors in a life well-lived, according to her.
‘It’s OK,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s hard, to be honest, but I entered a competition today.’
The last thing I wanted was to give her a stick to beat me with, but at the same time, she was my mum and I still found it difficult not to tell her when things were tough. It was like parental Tourette’s, even when I knew she wouldn’t help, I couldn’t stop myself.
‘A competition?’ She immediately perked up. ‘Do you think you’ll win?’
Mum liked it when I won things. It gave her something to brag about at the supermarket.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ignoring her sigh. ‘But I’m excited to have entered. And I did a shoot for a magazine the other day.’
‘In New York?’ she asked, an edge of pride in her voice.
‘Yes, I’ll send you a copy of the magazine when it comes out if you like?’
‘I’ll have a look,’ Mum replied. ‘You haven’t thought any more about going to work for Charlie, then?’
‘It would be with Charlie,’ I corrected with more confidence than I had felt for a while. ‘As partners. And no, I don’t do that any more, Mum. I’m a photographer.’
‘I just don’t understand how you can turn your back on years of hard work,’ she muttered. ‘All them hours for nothing. You didn’t chop and change like that in my day.’
‘I wasn’t planning on it,’ I told her. ‘But it’s done now.’
‘And what happens when you change your mind again in five years and decide you want to be, I don’t know, an opera singer?’ she said, clucking down the line. ‘Or a chicken farmer?’
‘I can’t sing and I’m scared of chickens,’ I replied. All that clucking and pecking put me right on edge. ‘So I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Mum, why are you so sure I’m going to mess this up?’
‘I don’t think you’ll mess it up!’ She sounded shocked. ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’
Never in my twenty-seven years and eleven months had I ever heard my mother say she was worried about me.
‘I’ve never had to worry about you, Tess,’ she went on. ‘Your sisters haven’t got what you’ve got; they’re not ambitious like you. All they wanted was to get married and have a family and they can do that here, where I can keep an eye on them. But you were always different.’
The words every child wanted to hear.
‘You were always good at things, Tess,’ she said. ‘And you’ve done well for yourself. I don’t want to see you throw all that away. Why can’t you just settle down with Charlie? You don’t want to end up like Amy, do you?’
‘There’s a difference between settling and compromising, Mum,’ I said as kindly as I could. ‘I wouldn’t be happy if I went back now. And Amy’s making a lot more money than I am right now, you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘But you’ll be happy struggling?’ she asked. ‘Not knowing where your money’s coming from?’
‘It’s going to come from working.’ I rested my head against the wall and stretched out my long, tired legs. ‘Same as it did before. It might take a bit longer and it might not be as much, but you don’t have to worry about me, I promise.’
‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to struggle at your age,’ Mum said with a sigh. ‘Why do you make things so hard on yourself?’
‘I don’t want to make things hard,’ I said. ‘But I do want to be happy and this makes me happy. I think the struggle will be worth it.’
I heard assorted sighing and tutting across the ocean while my mum attempted to come up with an argument and failed.
‘All I want is for you to be happy,’ she said, finally.
‘I am,’ I replied, sitting on the staircase of the New York townhouse while some of my best friends ate Chinese food and got tipsy in the next room. How could I not be?
‘And for me not to have to worry about you,’ she added.
‘I don’t know if I can do anything about that one,’ I said. ‘But it’s nice to know that you do.’
‘Well, of course I do,’ she muttered. ‘Right. I need to go to bed. Christmas dinner isn’t going to cook itself in the morning and no bugger else is going to help me. Certainly not you, off gallivanting around New York.’
And with that, normal parental service was resumed.
‘You could always try and call tomorrow if you find the time,’ she clucked. ‘I’m sure your sisters would appreciate it.’
‘I’ll call in the morning,’ I promised. ‘Merry Christmas, Mum.’
‘I’ll talk to you in the morning,’ she said, hanging up, her goodwill exhausted for the season.
‘Everything OK?’ Amy asked as I reappeared in the kitchen and plugged in my phone. ‘What did she want?’
‘Just to say Merry Christmas.’ I hopped back onto my stool and gave my best friend a hug.
‘Wow, something must be wrong,’ she said, handing me a fortune cookie. ‘She’s definitely not dying?’
‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ Kekipi said, his mouth full of moo shu pork. ‘You’d be amazed.’
‘What does your fortune say?’ Amy asked, watching while I cracked open the cookie.
‘The greatest risk is not taking one,’ I said, raising my eyebrows at the table. ‘So there, you’ve all been told.’
‘Mine said the same,’ Domenico said, waving his slip of paper in the air. ‘But I think my risk is marrying this one.’
‘Mine was eating everything on the table.’ Amy popped the top button of her jeans and opened her own cookie. ‘It never pays to kick a skunk. What the bloody hell does that mean?’
‘The fates have spoken,’ Kekipi said in an ominous voice. ‘Now, who wants another drink?’
Huddled around the kitchen table and snapping at each other with chopsticks, I realized I was incredibly happy. Sat there with Amy, Kekipi, Domenico and a Chinese takeaway, I couldn’t possibly have asked for more. Slipping my fortune into the back pocket of my jeans, I raised my glass in a toast and wondered what the next year could possibly bring th
at would top this.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Ho, ho, ho and a merry Christmas.’
It seemed like a terrible waste for Al not to dress up as Santa Claus on Christmas morning. Kekipi, Domenico, Delia and I were sitting around the Christmas tree in the living room, drinking Amy’s peppermint schnapps hot chocolate and waiting on the master of the house to present himself before we opened our gifts.
‘There you all are,’ Al declared, opening his arms up to a hug from his goddaughter.
His curly white hair was fuzzy from his pillow and his beard seemed fluffier and whiter than ever but it was his red flannel pyjama bottoms and holey Rolling Stones T-shirt that made me wonder if he really was Father Christmas. None of us had seen him on Christmas Eve, and he certainly had the look of a man who had spent the night delivering presents to children all over the world. Amy presented him with his spiked hot chocolate and he settled himself in on his huge leather settee with a very contented sigh.
‘How long have you all been awake?’ he asked, looking around at the huge piles of presents that covered the vintage carpets almost entirely. ‘I was worried I’d slept through lunch.’
‘Not quite,’ Kekipi replied. Apparently we were all ignoring the fact that he was wearing his sunglasses inside. With his pyjamas. ‘But we have been awake for a while, haven’t we, Amy?’
‘It’s not my fault you don’t sleep with earplugs,’ she replied, straightening the collar of her polar bear PJs. ‘Or that you don’t respect the classics.’
‘There’s nothing classical about being woken up by “Dominic the Christmas Donkey” at six o’clock in the morning,’ he replied, adding more schnapps to his cocoa. ‘In Hawaii, we celebrate on the beach at a reasonable hour. Kana Kaloka should take all your presents back and burn them.’
‘I don’t know what that means,’ she declared, taking the schnapps. ‘And I don’t care to.’
‘You’re lucky,’ I told him, my matching polar bear pyjamas accessorized with a pair of Uggs I’d picked up on sale at Bloomingdale’s the day before. ‘I’ve been up since five. That’s when the high-pitched puppy whining started.’
‘I love Christmas,’ Amy wailed, her head thrown back with frustration. ‘Can we please open the presents now?’
‘Speaking of presents,’ Delia, the only one of us who had managed to get completely dressed, said. ‘You should open mine now, I have to be at church in an hour.’
‘I can’t guess what it could be,’ Al said, as she presented him with what was clearly a surfboard, completely wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper.
‘It’s a surfboard,’ she said, as he tore open the wrapping. ‘Sorry, there’s no really great way of disguising it. I figured you could keep it here. So you can go surfing in the Rockaways. I know you miss it.’
‘That’s very sweet of you,’ he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I think it might be a bit too chilly to catch any waves today.’
‘But it’ll be great in summer.’ She picked up her exquisite Hermes handbag and gave him one more hug. There was always time for an extra hug for Al. ‘OK, I have to go meet Cici but I’ll be back tonight. Have a great day, you guys.’
‘That’s a nice board,’ Kekipi said, admiring Delia’s gift. ‘Wasted on these waves, Al.’
‘It’ll be much happier back in Hawaii,’ he agreed. ‘As will I.’
‘Are you going back soon?’ I asked, while Amy scurried around, distributing gifts to each person in the room. ‘It’s not that long until fashion week, is it?’
‘A little over a month,’ he nodded. ‘But I won’t be here. I came to a decision last night, I’m re-retiring.’
Amy stopped dead in the middle of the living room, a white Stormtrooper helmet on her head and a big stuffed bear wearing a grass skirt and a coconut bra in her arms.
‘You’re re-retiring?’ she repeated. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I’ve had quite enough,’ he replied, his eyes opening wide as he sipped his hot chocolate. ‘That packs quite a punch, doesn’t it? Very good.’
‘But what does it mean for the business?’ Amy asked from inside her helmet. ‘Is this because of the party? Because I’m really, really sorry about the party.’
‘This has nothing to do with that at all,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s more to do with the presentation, if I’m honest. I’m an old man, Amy. I miss my home, I miss the beach. This is a young man’s game and I haven’t got the appetite for it any more.’
Amy bowed her head, the saddest Stormtrooper you ever did see.
‘Not to interrupt, but is that for me?’ Kekipi asked, pointing a lightsaber at her helmet. ‘Because it’s fantastic.’
‘I’m surprised, that’s all,’ Amy said, removing the helmet and handing it to an ecstatic Kekipi. ‘After the reviews were so positive? I can’t believe you’d kill the line now.’
‘I’m not killing anything,’ Al said. ‘I’m retiring, not shutting up shop. I thought you’d be glad to have me out from underneath your feet.’
Amy tightened her grip around the bear’s throat.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I can’t think of anyone better to take over, can you?’ he replied. ‘You’ve spent the last six months shadowing me, why wouldn’t I choose you to take over the business?’
‘Me?’ Amy looked stunned. Aged twenty-eight, five-foot tall and clad in bright blue polar bear pyjamas, it was fair to say she wouldn’t be most people’s pick to run a business, let alone a fashion line, but then Al wasn’t most people. ‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I’m not, I’m afraid,’ he said, stroking his beard and taking another sip of his hot chocolate. ‘You’ll need business support, of course, but we’ll hire someone for that. Edward Warren has been very impressed with you and promised me he will step up his support with the manufacture and design end of things. And I will stay on as creative director for now, but I won’t be hands-on with the business every day. Really, this cocoa is very good. Is there any more?’
Amy stood in the centre of the room, completely silent.
‘This is if you’re interested,’ Al said. ‘Otherwise I can always ask Kekipi.’
‘The keys to the kingdom, at last!’ he declared, inside the Stormtrooper helmet, his lightsaber held aloft. ‘Only, I’m going to pass. Thanks, though.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Domenico muttered. ‘I was about to retract my proposal.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ Amy said, folding her legs up underneath her and sitting down right where she had stood. ‘You can’t really want me to run your business.’
‘I want you to try,’ he replied. ‘I don’t expect you to do it on your own and I know you still have a lot to learn, but I believe in you, Amy. You understand what I’m trying to achieve and I trust your instincts. I don’t want to hire some seasoned CEO to take AJB and turn it into something it’s not. You created the presentation from scratch and it couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d done every last thing myself. It couldn’t have been more perfect if my Janey had been running the show. You’ve proved to me that you can do it, now it’s time to prove it to yourself. Merry Christmas.’
‘Bloody hell,’ she said, staring at the carpet, dazed. ‘I got you a hat. It’s not even a very good one.’
The doorbell rang as Al roared with laughter.
‘I’ll get it,’ I said, scrambling to my feet while Domenico kissed his Imperial Stormtrooper on the top of his head. Who went round ringing doorbells on Christmas Day? We weren’t expecting any guests as far as I knew.
‘Two packages for Tess Brookes.’ A man in brown overalls waved a black handheld device at me. ‘Sign in the box.’
‘Oh,’ I said, startled, as he dumped one giant cardboard box and a small paper carrier bag inside the foyer. ‘OK. Thank you.’
‘Happy holidays,’ he grunted. ‘And Happy New Year.’
‘You too.’ I stared at the packages as he climbed back in his truck and drove away. I t
ried to pick up the box but it was far too heavy. Accepting defeat, I shoved it towards the living room, the brown, taped-up gift bag resting on top.
‘What is it?’ Amy asked, jumping to her feet and grabbing the gift bag. ‘Who is it from?’
‘No idea,’ I said, hands on my hips. ‘Let’s open it and see.’
I scratched my nail underneath the edge of the packing tape and tore it off with a loud rip. The flaps of the box flew open to reveal a cornucopia of festive English goodies: Christmas crackers, yule log, Quality Street, bottles of Baileys, boxes of After Eights, mince pies, jam tarts – and a huge netted bag of sprouts.
‘Oh my GOD!’ Amy grabbed a huge box of Jaffa Cakes and pressed it to her heart, spinning around the room. ‘I haven’t had a Jaffa Cake in months. I have missed you, my love.’
‘Who is this from?’ Kekipi pulled out a box of Ferrero Rocher and handed it to Domenico, who screwed up his face in disgust. ‘Who hates you this much?’
Ripping open a white envelope, I pulled out a glittery Christmas card.
‘It’s from Charlie,’ I said, watching a folded sheet of A4 float down to the floor. ‘It’s everything we usually have at my mum’s house at Christmas.’
Al pulled out a bag of Buttons. ‘How thoughtful.’
I picked up the piece of paper, read it, picked up the bottle of Baileys and went to sit on the sofa.
‘What does it say?’ Amy asked, chasing after me with a Jaffa Cake in each hand.
‘It’s a job description,’ I said, handing her the piece of paper. She rammed both Jaffa Cakes into her mouth and wiped her hands on her pyjama bottoms before taking it. I opened the Baileys and took a swig out of the bottle. ‘For a position at The BrookesWilder Agency.’
‘It’s got a ring to it,’ Kekipi said, reading over Amy’s shoulder. ‘He’s offering you how much?’