One New York Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘She’s trying new things,’ Susie said, aiming the statement at Seth.

  ‘He knows,’ Lara replied. ‘We talked about Mussolini.’

  The benches around the George M Cohan statue were covered in snow, only pigeons brave enough to strut around on the cold, crispy topping. They stood, their hot breath visible in the air. Seth hadn’t touched his rice bowl yet, he was too busy watching Lara enjoy her purple rice and Gochujang pork burrito.

  ‘I’ve never tasted anything like this before,’ she said in pure delight, a little sauce at the corner of her lips. ‘It’s like … heaven.’

  ‘I told you it was good,’ David replied through a mouthful of kimchi. He had ordered two boxes of food.

  ‘It’s sooo good,’ Susie agreed.

  ‘I’ve never had Korean food before,’ Lara said. ‘And I like it.’

  ‘You haven’t had much of anything before unless it came out of Appleshaw,’ Susie reminded. ‘Seth, we have a fish and chip shop that tries to do Chinese as well as Indian.’

  ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ Lara said to Seth.

  ‘I …’ He definitely wasn’t going to say because he was looking at her. He felt his cheeks develop a fever and he dug his fork into his food and put some in his mouth. ‘It’s great.’ It was great, but the food experience was definitely secondary to the other internal sensations happening right now … and he needed to keep himself in check.

  ‘Oh no! That’s my phone! That’s my phone!’ David squealed, dancing around in the snow, as if he didn’t know what to do, food cartons wafting around in the air, hot breath coming out in bursts.

  ‘Do you need to answer it?’ Susie asked.

  ‘Yes!’ he announced, frantic. ‘I am on call!’

  ‘On call?’ Lara queried. ‘Are you a firefighter and didn’t tell us?’

  ‘I am a hairstylist to royalty. I am on call twenty-four seven for any hair emergencies. Susie! You must dig deep into my pocket and get it out.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Lara exclaimed. ‘TMI.’

  ‘My phone! My phone!’ David screamed, almost hysterical.

  ‘All right, stop bouncing up and down or I won’t be able to get it out,’ Susie answered, passing her burrito to Lara.

  ‘Do you feel like we’ve walked onto the set of a really bad comedy movie?’ Lara asked Seth as David and Susie dealt with the phone-answering crisis.

  ‘It’s the prince! It’s the prince!’ David squealed. ‘Answer! And hold it to my mouth!’

  ‘Er, now I definitely do,’ Seth admitted with a laugh. He put the fork back into his food box and looked at Lara.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Do I have food on my face?’

  ‘Actually, yeah,’ he answered.

  ‘I don’t!’

  ‘You do but, hey, who doesn’t get food on their face when they’re eating a burrito?’

  ‘Well, you should do what they do in the movies,’ Lara said. ‘You should get a napkin and delicately dab at the offending whatever it is until it’s gone.’

  His heart was racing because now all he could focus on was her lips, her mouth, the tiniest trace of pimiento at the very corner …

  ‘Or, you know, I could maybe … kiss it away,’ he said. Saying it out loud rather than inside his head shocked him and it took every fibre of himself not to retract the statement immediately. But something was urging him on, not just the plain and simple physical desire to feel her mouth on his but something else, something deeper. He edged a little closer …

  ‘I … think they had some napkins on the truck,’ Lara said quickly. ‘I’ll go and see.’

  And just like that she was gone, moving past him, heading back towards the fast food. He was the biggest idiot. She was not his to kiss.

  Lara felt sick and light headed like she had spent a month in a dark cave and suddenly someone had turned on a whole city’s worth of Christmas lights and blinded her. Seth Hunt had tried to kiss her. Seth wanted to kiss her. And she had run away. She wasn’t sure which part of all that she was most affected by. Her first reaction, when Seth had said the ‘k’ word was one of pure thrill and excitement and, in a millisecond, she was envisaging a silver-screen snog to rival Allie and Noah’s in The Notebook, minus the rain, but then real life had kicked in, prudence had come calling and she had fled. And no matter what, she couldn’t go back without some form of wipe.

  But had she wanted to kiss Seth? Taking away the Dan-sized complications, what was the answer? If she was honest with herself, it was a definite ‘yes’ and it had nothing to do with his Dr Mike persona. He was just the most all-round wonderful, fun, interesting, gorgeous person she had ever met. But she wasn’t allowed to think that way … or, rather, she wasn’t allowing herself to think that way.

  She was almost back at the truck now, passing people by the dozen, lights and the sound of Christmas music filling the night. Napkins. She had to focus on napkins.

  ‘Lara, wait.’

  She froze, literally stopped still, at the sound of Seth’s voice behind her. She needed to chill out. Just act like nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened. She turned around, smiling at him. ‘You want me to get you a napkin too?’

  ‘No, I wanted to … apologise.’

  She swallowed, feeling suddenly like someone had taken all the festive glitter away and replaced it with paper chains made out of the Financial Times.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said … what I said.’

  She watched him, floundering a little, because he was just being so genuinely lovely and looking completely hot while he was doing it. She could rescue him here. She had the chance to say it didn’t matter, that they could forget about it and move on, but she didn’t really want to do that either.

  ‘I mean … I regret saying it,’ he carried on. ‘You know, out loud.’ He swallowed, his hair falling forward a little as he started to gesticulate, as if he needed help to get his point across. ‘But, I can’t be sorry about thinking it. Because if I said I was sorry about thinking about it then that would be a lie.’

  It was time for her to speak up now. To tell him to stop talking. Why wouldn’t the words come?

  ‘I really like you, Lara,’ Seth said. ‘Really like you. More than I’ve liked anyone since, I guess, always. And I realise that now makes me sound like some complete, socially awkward nobody but … I feel more connected to you after days than I’ve felt … ever.’

  Speak, Lara. Say something! Except she could hardly breathe. A small crowd of people dressed in red sweatshirts had appeared on the corner of the street and had begun singing ‘Calypso Carol’. It was one of her favourite festive songs she’d used to sing at school. It never failed to fill her with Christmas spirit but now all it was doing was sending her heart into meltdown as she looked at Seth gazing at her, telling her how he felt.

  ‘Can I take you out?’ Seth asked.

  Finally, she was able to drum up a word. ‘Out?’

  ‘Not a sightseeing trip or a dinner to meet a casting director.’ He paused. ‘A date.’

  The four-letter word couldn’t have been more poignant. A date meant not platonic. A date meant romance. If she said yes to this, she was saying goodbye to her relationship with Dan and finally accepting that it wasn’t a break but a real and final break-up. What did she say? The choir continued to sing, and Lara felt the enormity of being here, half the world away from everything she had ever known. She was seeing things she had only ever dreamed about before … and she was still holding burritos.

  ‘Listen, Lara, whatever you say, even if it’s a “no”—’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice quivering a little.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Yes, I can take you on a date?’

  She nodded, as hard as her reticence would allow her. She wanted to. She really wanted to, no matter how too soon it felt. There was guilt there, gliding into the background, threatening to take over the excited effervescence, but when she thought about Dan’s Christmas Scottish lodge plans and the festive market with Chloe,
those feelings somehow took a bow and left the stage. ‘Where are we going to go?’ she asked.

  He inched a little closer, his eyes matching hers. ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll make it special.’

  Lara swallowed, her body suddenly alive, dancing in moonbeams of excitement under his gaze. She watched him raise his hand and she really longed for him to cup her face, bring their lips together, deliver on that kiss he had obviously been thinking about. She closed her eyes …

  ‘Lara! We’ve got to go! David has to see the prince!’ Susie sounded so close.

  She snapped open her eyes and Seth quickly changed tack, wiping at her mouth with his thumb.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of sauce right there,’ he said, cheeks flushing. ‘Hey, Susie, we were just—’

  ‘Seeing if we could get a napkin.’ Lara swallowed. ‘No napkins.’ She shrugged at her best friend, then passed Susie’s burrito to her.

  ‘Sorry to rush off, Seth, but we’ll see you tomorrow? The boat ride up the Hudson and the Statue of Liberty?’ Susie asked.

  ‘I … don’t know if I can make tomorrow.’ He looked at Lara. ‘I’ve got my call-back and …’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Lara said quickly. She knew how important that audition was to him and they had seen each other every day since she had been here. Time alone with Susie would give her a chance to take a breath and maybe put all this into perspective.

  ‘Susie!’ David yelled, just visible a few metres away, arms raised to the sky, waving. ‘I cannot be late for the prince! He will be at the salon in twenty minutes!’

  ‘Sorry! See you, Seth,’ Susie said, turning away.

  Lara looked to Seth. She didn’t want to rush away after everything they had just said, but she didn’t have a choice. With the choir bowing to the crowd’s applause as they ended their first song Lara threw her arms around him, holding him tight and relishing how good he felt against her.

  ‘I think you squashed your burrito,’ Seth remarked.

  ‘I like them squashed,’ she answered, not letting go.

  ‘I’ll message you,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘We’ll make that date.’

  ‘Nothing too fancy,’ Lara replied, still holding on to him. ‘I’m not that kind of girl.’

  ‘Got it,’ Seth answered.

  She drew away and smiled, holding her tortilla wrap in the air like the Olympic torch. ‘Night.’

  ‘Goodnight, Lemur Girl.’

  Thirty-Nine

  The 11th Street Cafe, West Village

  ‘Jeez, are you out of your mind?’ Trent exclaimed as Seth came back to the table with the drinks the next morning. ‘You know it’s minus temperatures outside, right? You did feel that when we walked here, yeah?’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Seth asked, putting their drinks down and slipping into the seat opposite.

  ‘You’ve ordered a freaking iced pumpkin spiced latte, haven’t you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Seth answered, sheepishly moving the glass towards him.

  ‘It’s making me cold just looking at it,’ Trent shivered, picking up his hot coffee and cradling it into his chest.

  ‘It’s a ritual,’ Seth admitted, putting the straw to his mouth and sucking up the sweet, spicy, chilled drink.

  ‘For people to have in the summer!’

  ‘No, I mean, it’s my ritual. A superstition if you like.’ He put the glass down on the table and breathed in the laid-back morning vibe. The 11th Street Cafe was like a second home. The tiny snug of a coffee shop had served him and Trent everything from triple espresso hangover cures to pre-audition light lunches. He was very tempted to indulge in their scrambled eggs with chorizo, onion, potato and pepper. Everything that was coming out of the kitchen smelt so good. And the cafe was dressed for Christmas. Although, given its limited space, it was a real marvel how they had managed to fit in a full-sized real spruce tree, hanging lanterns and stockings on the walls.

  ‘You make your own luck,’ Trent stated.

  ‘You sound like my dad,’ Seth answered, shaking his head.

  ‘I’ve always liked your dad.’

  ‘OK, let’s not call it a superstition. Let’s just say that every audition I’ve ever been to, when I’ve had an iced pumpkin latte, I’ve got the job.’

  ‘Really?’ Trent mused, finger and thumb at his chin. ‘What about the audition for the Gladiator sequel?’

  ‘That film never got made,’ Seth answered.

  ‘OK … what about the part for the Mayans FX series?’

  ‘I had a hot chocolate before that one … but maybe if I’d known then that I was half Spanish/Puerto Rican/Mexican then I would have worked that part of me a little harder.’

  ‘What?’ Trent exclaimed.

  Seth swallowed. He’d lost himself there for a minute. He had forgotten that he hadn’t told Trent anything about his birth mother. And, with Trent, there would be no backtracking now he had had a sniff of something.

  He shrugged. ‘I found out my birth mother is called Garcia.’

  ‘Whoa! You found your mom! Shit, man, when did that happen?’ Trent said at a volume where the whole cosy cafe could hear over the coffee machines.

  ‘I haven’t exactly found her. I just asked my mom … my mom, Kossy … and I got a name and a photo.’ He had looked at the photo again this morning, wondering what Candice looked like now, twenty-eight years on. How old was she in that photo? How old would she be now? Was she even still alive?

  ‘And what did you do next? Look her up on Facebook?’

  Why did everyone else think of this next step so naturally? He swallowed and shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘God! Why not?! Let’s do it now!’ Trent said, getting his phone out of his jacket pocket. ‘What’s her first name?’

  ‘No,’ Seth said immediately.

  ‘Come on, Seth. This is your birth mother we’re talking about. If I was in your shoes, sitting in front of that colder-than-Manhattan drink, I’d be wanting to know what she looks like now. Where she lives. If she’s got more kids. What they look like. Who they are. I mean, theoretically, you could be passing any of them in the street every day and not know you share the same biology.’

  He had thought about that himself. Whether it was his twin or someone younger, part of his mother’s new life. His eyes went to the dark-eyed, dark-haired barista behind the counter. He could have half-siblings literally anywhere.

  ‘I need to focus on this call-back,’ he said, putting his mouth to the drink again.

  ‘I read the script last night,’ Trent informed, slurping at his coffee.

  ‘You did?’ Seth asked. ‘What did you think?’ He really wanted his friend to see what he saw in the heart-warming story.

  Trent raised his hand and tipped it left and right like he was unsure. ‘I think it’s gonna go one of two ways. It’s either gonna be the surprise box office smash of the year or it’s gonna go the way of The Chronicles of Riddick and bomb.’

  Seth shook his head. ‘It’s not gonna bomb. I feel it.’

  ‘That sounds suspiciously like superstition speaking.’ Trent laughed. ‘Wow, I can’t believe I actually got that sentence out. All those freaking “S” words.’

  ‘What did you think of the character of Sam?’ Seth asked him.

  ‘I thought you’d be perfect for it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He’s good – most of the time – but he’s also strong and determined, yet vulnerable. He’s complex but relatable … and you, buddy, are gonna smash the audition.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Seth said, with a less than convincing nod.

  ‘Come on, man, where’s the positivity? You were personally invited back by Toby Jackson, you’re ticking all the boxes of “what to do when you’re invited for a call-back”, wearing the outfit you wore when he last saw you, gonna give it as much passion as you did at Cafe Cluny, not be intimidated if Brad Pitt is there. Embrace your individuality, and don’t fuck it up.’

  ‘Thanks, I think.’

  Trent’
s phone beeped, and he looked at it, immediately tutting and raising his eyes to the cafe ceiling.

  ‘What is it?’ Seth asked.

  ‘It’s Carlson, again. He’s got a visit from some inspectorate at the Christmas world this morning.’

  ‘Listen,’ Seth began. ‘I’m really sorry about the opening but—’

  ‘Hey, I know what Carlson’s like. You turned up like I asked you. You and the animal crusader stole the reindeer, we’re all good,’ Trent insisted. ‘Plus, a couple of people tweeted photos of you and laraweekend leading Rudolph down Sixth Avenue. How is that going with her? Or has she got too needy? I haven’t seen many heart-warming photos on your profile. We really need to ramp that up if we’re gonna make a good angle out of it.’

  ‘Well, I …’

  ‘Come on, man, raising your profile, Stand for Wildlife, repairing a Brit girl’s broken heart, your mom’s shelter …’ He exhaled loudly, then pointed at Seth. ‘Is there an opportunity to serve the poor people some dinner or something? The press really lap that shit up.’

  ‘The next event is the fundraiser. It’s all would-be aldermen and people with money.’

  ‘We could get some homeless people to stand outside the fundraiser and you could go out there and give them some of the leftover food. That would be golden!’

  ‘Trent,’ Seth said. ‘Stop. That’s completely contrived and I’m having no part of anything like that.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ Trent asked. ‘Yes! You find your mother on Facebook and we have a whole emotional reunion. If you get that part today, it’s gonna be amazing promotion for the film and—’

  ‘Trent! Stop!’ Seth snapped. Now it was his voice that was way louder than the coffee machine and the general hubbub of the chat from the customers surrounding them. He felt like he ought to apologise but instead he looked harshly at his friend. ‘Listen, I know you think you’re trying to do your best for me but none of this is me. This is someone who craves attention, needs fame … I’ve never been like that and I don’t want to be like that. I act because I love it. I act because it’s all I know. And yes, I act because it pays the bills but, the fame game – I hate that.’