I Heart Christmas

More often than not, in situations where most people would have been rendered speechless it was my unfortunate habit to let out a string of expletives and unintelligible noises. However, in this instance, I was quite simply gobsmacked.

‘I know we’ve had some issues in the past,’ Cici went on, ignoring the horror on my face and the fear in my eyes. ‘But I’ve totally changed. I’ve been in India at a yoga retreat.’

As if to convince me that this complete and utter spiritual shift was complete, she tugged on a tiny plait, interwoven with gold and red threads, hidden in her hair.

‘I was there for six weeks.’

For a moment, I was very worried that I had actually drunk myself to death the night before and this was some sort of purgatorial test but a quick and painful pinch of the arm proved that whether I liked it or not, this was happening.

‘So, you went to a spa in India, got your hair done and now you’re a new person?’ I just wanted to get all my facts straight before I called the police.

‘I mean, they called it a spa,’ Cici said with a raised eyebrow. ‘But, you know, I didn’t dare sit in the steam room on my own and I had to take my own towels. And for some reason there were, like, cows and elephants everywhere.’

‘Because you were in India?’ I suggested.

‘Yeah, at a spa,’ she repeated.

‘Right.’ I used my last reserve of strength to stand up and press my hands onto the desk, trying my hardest to look stern and as though I wouldn’t fall over if a kitten pushed me with a whisker. ‘This has been fascinating but you have to leave. I’m sure you’ve got whatever hilarious kick you were after out of my outfit anyway.’

‘Listen, Angela.’ Cici flushed bright red and stood up until we were face to face. Except for now she was about five inches taller than me, even in trainers. Albeit nice ones. ‘I really have changed and I really want to make a new start. I guess in some weird, abstract way, I sort of kind of feel like you and I owe each other an apology.’

‘That is interesting,’ I said as my psycho alarm began to blare inside my head.

‘But clearly you want to hold a grudge.’ She sniffed and feigned a sad face. ‘I guess spending all that time soul-searching and working out how I can be a better person, how I can make my pops and my sister proud, I guess all that was for nothing.’

‘It would seem so,’ I said with as much sympathy as I could muster. ‘I hope you at least got a good massage out of it.’

‘You’ve changed.’ Her eyes flashed, as though she was being hard done by, as though she might actually be able to squeeze out a tear. ‘I know you don’t believe it but I liked working with Mary when I was her assistant, you can ask her.’

‘Well, yeah,’ I admitted. ‘But I’m fairly certain you never accidentally on purpose dropped a picture of a huge penis in any of her PowerPoint presentations either, did you?’

‘You have changed, Angela,’ she nodded, smiling. ‘What, now you’re a big shot editor with your dumb dip-dye colour job, you’re too big and important to give a girl a second chance? And FYI, I wasn’t even going to mention your cruddy outfit.’

‘By my count, this would be your fifth chance,’ I pointed out. ‘And it’s not dip-dye, I just haven’t had time to get the roots done.’

‘Whatever,’ she snapped. ‘Namaste.’

I watched Cici and her wounded karma flounce all the way down the office, confusing the newbies who thought she was Delia in a never-before-seen huff and scaring those who remembered her from her previous reign of terror at Spencer Media. I fixed my eyes on her tiny bottom until she was safely in the lift and safely out of the building. And then I sat down. And then I sighed. And then I threw up in my bin.

My name is Angela. I am disgusting.

Two hours later, I was still sat at my desk, surrounded by Christmas cheer I was struggling to feel and desperate to get outside into the fresh air. But sadly, if I wanted to take any time off the following week, there was a lot of work to be done. I’d already had an email from Mary saying they needed me in on Monday but I was still hoping to take the rest of the week off. Four days of fun was better than none.

I rubbed my eyes to stop them from blurring as I stared at a page of mascara reviews, only to pull away my fists covered in blackish brown smudges. I’d been looking at my computer for too long and I was a long way from being finished yet. There was every chance I shouldn’t have spent half an hour streaming the Come Dine With Me Christmas special after Cici left but how else was I supposed to get back my seasonal spirit? That girl brought out my inner Grinch. Before I could focus my eyes back on the screen, my iPhone rattled across the glass top of my desk, flashing up a name that made me very, very happy.

‘Hello!’ I screeched, mentals and mascara smudges completely forgotten.

‘Clark, get your arse outside. I’m freezing my bloody balls off.’

Even though it was not Santa, I would have been hard-pressed to be more excited. This was someone who gave much better gifts and visited far less regularly.

‘On my way,’ I replied, hanging up and clapping my hands. The magazine could manage without me for ten minutes. Probably.

‘All right, you old slag.’ As soon as I stepped out of the Spencer Media lobby James Jacobs, my absolute favourite formerly closeted gay actor from Sheffield, threw his huge arms around me and squeezed until I squeaked. I hadn’t seen him since my wedding, despite repeated promises and four a.m. text messages swearing he’d swing by the next time he was in New York. Oh, to be so jet-set-slash-busy doing it with boys. We hugged it out while I wrapped my not nearly warm enough but very cute Theory duffel coat and jumped up and down, half because I was so excited and half to warm up my feet. It really was bloody freezing.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to visit?’ I demanded, still mid-hug. Sometimes his hugs went on a bit and I couldn’t quite breathe but they were very lovely. ‘Or are you on the run?’

‘How did you know?’ he asked, letting me go and holding me at arm’s length to get a good look. ‘I’m here for work and to tell you to get your hair cut. Where do we go?’

‘We could just go upstairs?’ I suggested. ‘I’ve got an office with walls and windows and everything.’

‘As impressive as that sounds,’ James said, patting me on the top of the head, ‘I’d rather not.’

‘Because of the celebrity mags?’ I asked, all sympathetic and understanding.

‘Because I shagged one of the blokes who works on reception once and never called him,’ he replied. ‘So, where are we going?’

I thought for a moment. He didn’t want to go to the office, I didn’t want to go to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and neither of us wanted to stand in the street freezing our nuts off, which did not leave us with many options. Looking up at James, six foot something, glossy brown hair, huge eyes, cheekbones that would slice bread, I frowned. Did he have to be quite so bloody tall and gorgeous? If we couldn’t go somewhere he wouldn’t be recognised, we had to go somewhere no one would care. Somewhere people had other things to think about. Somewhere in Times Square …

‘I know just the place.’ I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street. ‘I’m a genius. Follow me.’

‘You’re a genius?’ James shook his head and folded his arms. ‘Sometimes, Angela Clark, I worry.’

‘Embrace it,’ I replied. ‘It was close, it’s quiet and no one in Toys R Us a week before Christmas gives a shit about you. They just want a Buzz Lightyear or Teletubby or whatever the kids are into these days. Plus, I’ve got a bag of Sour Patch Kids in my handbag so you’ll even get a snack. What more could you want?’

When most people were stressed or unhappy, they went to look at the ocean or hang out in the park. Others opted for retail therapy – Holly Golightly went to Tiffany, Jenny Lopez went to Saks Fifth Avenue, I went to Toys R Us in Times Square. Admittedly, it was a bit odd when I didn’t have any kids of my own but I had yet to find anywhere else within ten minutes’ walking distance of my office as distracting as the giant animatronic dinosaur in the Jurassic Park section of the store. When Bergdorf put one of those in, I’d walk the extra ten blocks. Until then, I was staying here.

‘Sour Patch Kids are not a snack,’ he said, taking a handful anyway and raising his voice over the extra-loud music. ‘Jesus, I haven’t eaten this much sugar in about seven years. Incredible. Your logic troubles me.’

‘But you do admit it’s a kind of logic,’ I said, ‘so that’s something.’

‘If anyone tweets about this, I’ll kill you,’ he said, pausing to offer the kids in the My Little Pony car below us a dazzling smile and flip his curly brown hair away from his face. Yes, he clearly hated the attention. ‘And if I get motion sickness, I’m going to throw up on your shoes.’

I crossed my legs, tucking my Uggs under the seat, and hoped he was joking. It was a miracle I’d never thrown up on them, I’d be damned if someone else was going to do it.

‘OK, what’s going on?’ I asked, popping a handful of sour sweets in my mouth and leaning back to enjoy the ride. ‘Aside from making my Friday complete, what are you doing here?’

‘You can’t tell anyone,’ James leaned in to whisper in my ear with unnecessary but very welcome theatrical flair. ‘I just auditioned for a musical.’

I stared at him with a completely blank expression.

‘Fuck off.’

James. In a musical. Ha. Yes, he was an actor and yes, he was as gay as the day was long but he was far from camp and, above all else, he was a boy from Sheffield. It just wasn’t possible. Boys from Sheffield weren’t in musicals. They could be in bands but they could absolutely, positively not be in musicals.

‘I did! I just auditioned for a musical!’ he insisted, just loud enough for everyone in the shop to update everyone they knew on every form of social media known to man. So much for subtlety. ‘I’m serious.’

And according to the slightly annoyed glint in his eyes, he was.

‘Hollywood wasn’t enough?’ I sipped my water and tried to rein in my excitement. I loved a musical – it was my not-so-secret secret shame. The fact that tickets were so incredibly bloody expensive was the only thing that stopped me from singing along with Pippin every single night. Well, ticket prices and the fact that everyone I knew would disown me. ‘Which one?’

‘Les Mis,’ he replied casually as he popped another sour sweet with relish. ‘God, I’ve missed junk food. Maybe I’ll get really fat next year and then do Dancing with the Stars to get it all off.’

My heart stopped. My eyes widened. Had he just said what I thought he had?

‘Les Mis as in Les Miserables? As in the best musical ever made? As in I know all the words and sometimes when I’m in the shower I like to pretend I’m Eponine and you can never, ever, ever repeat that as long as you live?’

‘Yes, Angela, you mental, that Les Mis,’ he said. ‘You know they’re reviving it?’

‘Of course I know they’re reviving it,’ I answered in a near shout. ‘There is a blog, James. There are several blogs. I cannot believe you auditioned for it. Who are you playing?’

‘Well, if I get it,’ he said, very clear about the ‘if’, which I ignored, obviously. ‘Jean Valjean. You know?’

I did know. And to communicate this, I pressed my hands to my heart and nodded because I was entirely without words. Twice in one day. It was a new record.

‘And yeah, I had the audition this morning so I flew in last night, met the producers, sang my song …’ He raked a hand through the too-long hair that now made all sorts of sense and shrugged. ‘I’ll know in a few days if they want to see me again, so I thought I’d stick around.’

‘I’d invite you to stay but it’d be the sofa or the airbed and I am sure you are far too fancy for that,’ I said, trying to pretend I didn’t want to talk exclusively about the fact that he was potentially going to appear in my all-time favourite musical ever.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ James pulled a face and stretched his arms out along the back of the car. He was clearly enjoying himself, even if he wasn’t prepared to admit it. ‘I’m staying at the Mondrian. And you know I don’t do Brooklyn. It gives me a rash.’

‘You’ve never been to Brooklyn,’ I pointed out. ‘But if you’re going to be here over Christmas, I’m going to force you over at gunpoint. I’m going to do a Boxing Day thing. Jenny’ll be around. And probably Graham and Craig. You remember Graham?’

‘Graham?’ James furrowed his brow into a vision of contemplation. He was so handsome. When I was thinking hard, I looked like I needed the bathroom, or was about to cry. Because sometimes when I had to think that hard I did cry. ‘Is he the one I met at your wedding?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, practising my judgey face for when I got back to the office. ‘In England and in New York. He’s the bassist in Alex’s band? Very tall, handsome, glasses? You had sex with him several times?’

James clicked his fingers and nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Nice guy.’

‘And so memorable.’

‘It was ages ago,’ he said, as though I was being entirely unreasonable. ‘We hooked up, we weren’t the ones getting married.’

‘I suppose it is easier to remember the names of everyone you’ve ever had sex with when you can count them all on one hand,’ I replied. ‘Names, dates of birth, identifying marks, names of parents, allergies and medical issues.’

‘I can’t decide if you’re my hero or the saddest woman I ever met.’ James squeezed his arm around my shoulders, elbowing Woody and Buzz in the face. ‘Poor lamb. Tell me all about it. Have you got the seven-year itch a bit early?’

‘No,’ I protested, horrified at the very thought. ‘I wouldn’t cheat on Alex. Not even with a Hemsworth.’

‘What about both Hemsworths?’ he asked.

I paused for a moment.

‘Nope,’ I declared. ‘Not even both Hemsworths and a Gosling.’

‘Shit, that’s serious,’ James clucked. ‘You really should think before you say such things.’

‘I mean it,’ I said and I did. ‘Let’s be honest, I was never very good at dating. I’m perfectly happy to have retired early.’

‘Sounds nice,’ he said, contemplative for a second. ‘But yeah, there comes a time when enough’s enough. But what can a boy do when he’s ready for a change?’

‘Secretly pop over to New York without telling his friends,’ I suggested, ‘and audition for a part in a musical?’

‘Oh Clark, you’re not as green as you are cabbage-looking, are you?’ He smiled and gave my shoulder another squeeze. ‘You can be quite perceptive sometimes.’

I smiled. Upsettingly, it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all day.

‘So what’s going on?’ I asked, smiling broadly at the bored-looking shop assistant who was in charge of shoving people on and off the ride. I wondered if anyone ever fell off. I wondered if anyone ever jumped off. It would be a hell of a way to go.

‘Nothing really.’ He peered over the edge of our car and tapped out a beat on the side of the carriage. I noticed the stubble on his cheeks, the dark shadows under his eyes. I’d assumed they were evidence of too much travelling and fun times but maybe not. ‘Just feeling a bit shit, a bit lonely. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone around.’

‘And that’s what you want?’ I covered my mouth so as not to offend him with a mouthful of neon goo. ‘A boyfriend?’

‘I want something,’ James said, looking behind us. Buzz and Woody seemed to understand. ‘I want someone to text stupid things to, not just a picture of my knob and my place at twelve? I’m thinking about moving to New York permanently actually. LA feels a bit tired.’

‘Obviously I would love that.’ I decided to ignore the dick pic part of the debate. That was an issue for his agent, not me. ‘You really think the dating prospects are better here than in California?’

‘That’s what I hear,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘And it’s a better place to raise a family for me, I think.’

‘Everyone has gone baby mad.’ I dug my hands deep into the pockets of my coat and tried to remember if I’d taken my Pill that morning. ‘Is there something in the water?’

‘You too?’ James broke into a real smile. ‘That would be amazing. Imagine, our little babies growing up together, going to school together, beating each other up, having incredibly awkward sexual encounters and then crying about it all in therapy twenty years later. Amazing.’

‘Well, as special as that sounds …’ I couldn’t quite return his big grin but I mustered up the ghost of a smile so as not to let him down. ‘It’s not me just yet. Alex, maybe. Jenny, yes. My friend, Erin, just had her second.’

‘You’re not ready?’ he asked.

I fiddled with my engagement ring and shook my head.

‘I just pulled a half-empty, family-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids out of my handbag and that was supposed to be my lunch,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not ready. How am I supposed to take care of a baby? I am a baby.’

‘You know what they say, there’s never a right time,’ he said, taking another handful of sweets and throwing them into his mouth. ‘But I have just crossed you off my surrogate list.’

‘Thank you.’ I scooped up the rest of the sweets into my hand and folded the bag as small as possible to avoid filling the bottom of my satchel with sour sugar. Again. ‘It is appreciated.’

‘You say Jenny’s feeling broody?’ James did not extend the same mouth-covering courtesy to me that I had shown to him. Gross. ‘She seeing someone?’

‘Yes, she is, and sort of, but maybe not by now. She’s being ridiculous. It’s totally out of nowhere.’

‘Hmm.’ My favourite gay leaned forward, elbows on knees, swinging the carriage forward. I just managed not to squee with delight. ‘Biological clocks are pretty intense, Clark, and she’s a couple of years older than you, isn’t she?’

‘I know,’ I said, feeling a tiny bit guilty. ‘I’m not giving her a hard time, or at least I hope I’m not. I just don’t want her to rush into something this massive and then regret it. I don’t know if she really wants a baby or she just doesn’t want to be on her own. I don’t think dating Craig has really been the relationship of her dreams.’

‘Which one is Craig?’ he frowned.

‘The one in Alex’s band that you didn’t have sex with,’ I said. ‘I hope.’

‘I definitely only did the one in the glasses,’ he said, squinting with the effort of remembering. ‘But I think I remember him. He’s hot.’

‘He is,’ I acknowledged. ‘But I don’t think he’s particularly thinking about the future right now. He’s a straight, good-looking thirty-two-year-old musician in Brooklyn. That gives him the emotional maturity of a nineteen-year-old anywhere else in the world.’

‘Alex manages monogamy,’ James said, his foot tapping along to ‘Frosty the Snowman’ as he spoke. ‘Maybe you’re just being cynical.’

‘And I fully expect to wake up from my coma and find out Alex was all a dream any day now,’ I replied. ‘He is not the norm here, you know that. Dating is hard. I think that’s a bigger problem for Jenny than the baby thing. I just don’t think she wants to admit it.’

‘It’ll all come out in the wash,’ he said with a yawn. ‘You’ll get the truth out of her eventually. Probably when you’re hammered.’

‘You know me so well,’ I said, wincing at the thought of ever having to drink again. I could not hold my ale like I used to and that was saying something. ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner? I’ll call her, we’ll get her liquored up together?’

‘In Brooklyn?’

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, Clark,’ James replied with a friendly smile. ‘How many times? I Don’t Go There.’

You had to admire a man who had his principles.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Are you planning on getting out of bed at all today?’

I opened one eye and squinted up at an unusually perky-looking Alex Reid. Instead of hiding from any sort of natural light, which was how I found him almost every single morning, he was up, dressed and sat on the edge of the bed, holding a steaming cup of coffee. Weird.

‘No?’ I closed my eye and pulled a pillow over my head.

It was Saturday. A quick shuffle of my feet confirmed my body was entirely covered by the duvet and I didn’t need a wee. There was absolutely no good reason I could see as to why I should move at all.

‘It’s just that I kind of need you to get up so we can go check in on your Christmas present.’

I opened both eyes. I moved the pillow. I looked at my husband.

‘Give me fifteen minutes,’ I replied.

A little over an hour later, Alex and I emerged from the deepest, darkest depths of the G train, thirty minutes from home and in the middle of a neighbourhood I barely knew.

‘We’re in Park Slope?’ I asked as he took hold of my hand and squeezed it through my bright knitted mittens. ‘I should not be wearing shorts.’

‘It’s below freezing,’ Alex replied. ‘That’s why you shouldn’t be wearing shorts.’

‘What are we doing?’ I asked, looking left and right at quiet, orderly streets. ‘My Christmas present is in Park Slope?’

‘Your Christmas present is in Park Slope,’ Alex repeated, nodding his head and pointing with the hand that held mine. ‘This way.’

I was full of questions but Park Slope was a library of a neighbourhood, shushing me before I could speak. Alex and I didn’t hang out this south of Williamsburg often. Or ever actually. Brooklyn was a big borough, full of diversity and adventure, but for the most part, there were three different kinds of neighbourhoods. There was the trendy, hipster part where people rode their bikes everywhere and had ironic moustache tattoos on their fingers, there were the incredibly dodgy bits where I was too scared to get off the subway, and then there were the yummy mummy, super-swanky parts with lots of trees, lots of iPads and lots of odd shops that sold things like artisanal mayonnaise or handcrafted hats. And only two things united all three areas – a fierce love of Beyoncé and men with beards. Park Slope was the epitome of the third type of neighbourhood.

Everywhere I looked, there were attractive couples in their gym clothes pushing elaborate prams and drinking from reusable water bottles, well-groomed women walking expensive-looking dogs and coffee shop after coffee shop after coffee shop. I knew that somewhere nearby there was a huge, beautiful park where Alex’s band, Stills, had played at a festival the summer before and I’d been saying I was going to come back and visit for months on end but, like so many things I was ‘going to do’ in New York, I still hadn’t got around to it. But I did remember that Park Slope in the summer had been beautiful, all sunny skies and green trees, and if it was possible, today it was even more picturesque. The streets we strolled down were orderly and clean, punctuated with stately trees and lined by big brownstones, the kind of houses that made me want to put on my best shoes, sit on my stoop and flag down a yellow cab. Inside, I saw warmly lit trees and menorahs, and almost every other door had a beautiful red-ribboned wreath hanging outside. Even though we were half an hour away from Manhattan, this looked like the New York you saw in the movies and it made my heart sing.

‘You really have no idea where we’re going?’ Alex asked, sheepdogging me down another street, away from the coffee shops and past a church and a synagogue and another church. With its own coffee shop. ‘I can’t believe I’ve actually been able to keep a secret from you.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ I explained, looking up at the street signs and trying to work out what he was talking about. ‘Is it food?’

‘No, it’s not food,’ he sighed. ‘It’s better than food.’

‘Seriously, I got dressed before midday on a Saturday and you’re not even going to feed me?’ What was better than food? ‘Was that Anne Hathaway? She lives here.’

‘You got half dressed,’ he reminded me. His eyes were shining so brightly I couldn’t help but smile. ‘These are the things I worry about when I’m away on tour. And no, I don’t think it was Anne Hathaway.’