One New York Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

‘Susie, come on, I think it’s time we got some coffee.’ She mouthed a sorry to the stallholder and steered Susie out from under his canopy to the crowded marketplace that was a shopaholic’s delight. When her friend got like this there was really only one thing to do and that was distraction.

  ‘How about I let you suggest a bag for me.’ Lara still didn’t want a bag, but Susie needed the delight of finding one for her. And bags in the market were hopefully going to be a lot cheaper than designer brands at Macy’s.

  ‘You don’t want a bag,’ Susie scoffed. ‘You’re just saying that in the hope I’ll stop going on about David’s weak and pathetic display last night.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Lara, you didn’t want the perfect bag the other day. You don’t want one now.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You just want me to shut up about David not looking at engagement rings and looking at crazy-expensive brooches for his ninety-year-old grandmother. I mean, where exactly is she going to go to warrant wearing a brooch that costs over five hundred dollars?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Five hundred dollars for a brooch! That’s like half the amount of money I would expect him to spend on an engagement ring!’

  ‘Half!’ Lara exclaimed before she could stop herself. She had no idea how much engagement rings were, obviously. But a thousand dollars seemed like a vast sum. Her car cost less than that.

  ‘What? You think I’m being materialistic? Well, I only plan on doing it once. It has to mean something, and no one really means something if they spend less than a grand.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Lara said. ‘Who took my best friend in the night and replaced her with a … an … engagement-zilla.’ She had no idea if that was even a type of person but, at the moment, it sounded exactly right.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Susie said, clapping her hands to her cheeks as they came to a halt at a German stall selling all manner of Christmas delights. There were gingerbread houses and men, winter drinks with spices, gift boxes filled with chocolate-coated nutcracker soldiers. ‘I’ve gone all materialistic and label-loving. I’m turning into my mother!’

  ‘No,’ Lara said. ‘No, you’re not, well, maybe a bit, but I get it. This isn’t Appleshaw. It’s like London, but better. It’s New York and you’re getting carried away with the city life and seeing David again and … I almost had sex with Seth last night.’

  ‘What?’

  Lara hadn’t meant to say those exact words, or any words, but out they had come. She nodded.

  ‘But when I asked you how the date had gone this morning you just said “fine”. You didn’t say anything about almost-sex.’

  ‘I went to elaborate, but you launched into a tirade about David not knowing you at all and how you were going to blunt his best scissors.’

  ‘I …’ Susie started. ‘I did say that, didn’t I! God, I’m an awful person. I don’t even know if I want to marry him. I just wanted to think that he might want to marry me!’ She gasped. ‘Back to the almost-sex, please!’

  This stallholder who had seemed like he was going to offer them a gingerbread gift box selection to look at, withdrew the tin box as rapidly as she had offered it.

  ‘Can we go and get coffee?’ Lara suggested.

  They sat inside one of the stalls on stools at a whole bar of different coffees. There was every flavour you could imagine from creamy caramel and hazelnut to maple bacon and taco … Lara had opted for something slightly more regular than savoury foods, although it was a flavour she hadn’t tried before. Chocolate coconut. It smelt so good and the cream on top was divine.

  ‘So, you kissed,’ Susie said, slurping at her oatmeal cookie drink.

  ‘Several times, actually … and we held hands.’ She flushed when she said the words ‘we held hands’ like she’d said ‘and we did it doggy style’. Somehow, the hand-holding had felt even more intimate than the kissing.

  ‘Does that make me a slut?’ Lara asked. ‘A two-timer. A cheat. A … douchebag?’

  ‘You are not a douchebag. Or any of those other things. You have done nothing wrong. Dan said he wanted a break. Dan is with Chloe. You are in New York and you’ve met Seth.’

  ‘I shouldn’t feel guilty? I shouldn’t stop seeing him? I mean I came here to try and win Dan back and now …’

  ‘You’ve finally woken up and seen what else is out there? Reached out and discovered more than Mrs Fitch’s afternoon teas and cut-price compost?’

  ‘You make it sound like I spent half my life in the garden centre.’ Lara sipped at her coffee, the flavours waking up her taste buds.

  ‘I think you might have spent half your life with your eyes shut,’ Susie admitted. ‘And now you’ve had them opened you’re staring at … Seth Hunt.’

  She shivered, and Susie caught it straight off, despite Lara trying to shift on her stool and make out it was nothing but the slight winter wind.

  ‘And if he makes you feel like that I don’t know why you didn’t have sex with him.’

  ‘He said no.’

  ‘What? You asked him.’

  ‘See, I’m a slut.’

  ‘Stop saying that. I’m surprised he said no, that’s all.’

  ‘He said no because he’s a nice guy, and he was right. It wouldn’t have been right to do it that soon, if at all.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that’s it? You’re not going to have sex with him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lara said. ‘I don’t want to plan it. Who does that? It should happen, you know, organically, like it does—’

  ‘In the movies?’ Susie interrupted, her eyes rolling like two eggs trying to escape a boiling pan of water. ‘You might be waiting a long time in that case. The first time David and I had sex it took him six minutes to get the costumes out of the Amazon packaging and—’

  ‘Susie! No! Once I hear it I can’t unhear it!’ She clamped her hands over her ears.

  ‘I’m just saying, a little bit of pre-planning doesn’t hurt.’

  ‘Maybe I should call Dan.’

  ‘What? No! What for? To ask his permission to sleep with Seth?’

  ‘Well …’ Asking permission was a little over the top but she still felt a little bit like she was one foot in the relationship and the other outside it. It would be good to get some closure.

  ‘You are not going to call Dan. Did he ask your permission to take Chloe to the Salisbury Christmas Market? Did he get your approval for him to share the mulled wine and local bands you love with her?’

  Lara shook her head.

  ‘Or how about the other hot-tub morons? Do you want to ask them what they think too?’

  ‘OK, I get it. It was a stupid idea.’

  ‘Yes,’ Susie said. ‘It was. Because the only person you need approval from is yourself, and me, obviously. And I give you permission. I give you permission to get Seth Hunt in every position imaginable and—’

  ‘Shh!’ Lara waved her hands in front of Susie’s mouth in a bid to quieten her.

  ‘This is your time now, Lara. Your Christmas in New York, in your …’ Susie looked down at Lara’s feet. ‘Vagabond boots … getting right to the very heart of it, here, in old New York.’

  She couldn’t help but think about how she and Seth had shouted from the top of the Empire State Building. ‘Please don’t sing,’ Lara begged.

  ‘So, when are you going to have sex with Seth?’ Susie asked, like her coffee had induced hyperactivity all of a sudden. ‘David and I can go out – not to Tiffany’s again – we can romance up your room at the apartment, put on some bedroom jams from Spotify, mood lighting, food you can smear—’

  ‘OK, stop,’ Lara said, half amused, half terrified. ‘I know we’ve not got long left here but I still need to be sure.’

  ‘Ugh! Well, when are you seeing him next? Tonight?’

  ‘He said he’d call. Last night he said something about having interviews today for the film premiere tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re dating a movie star!’
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br />   ‘I can’t believe the first time you had sex with David you wore a costume.’

  ‘To be honest, I’ve never been able to watch Frozen since.’

  ‘Susie! Noooooo!’

  Fifty

  Four Seasons Hotel, East 57th Street

  Seth had finished his second glass of water and his mouth was still dry. He and Trent were sitting in the room outside the main suite, waiting for his turn to be grilled by the city’s press. There were bright red poinsettia plants and bowls of Christmas berries everywhere. When they’d arrived, he’d been offered red and white striped candy and a cranberry juice box by a festively dressed receptionist. He had barely thought of Christmas this week, but it was coming, and it was all over the city.

  He wasn’t nervous about this set of interviews for The End of Us because he had had a relatively small character role in the set-to-be blockbuster and all eyes were on the stars of the show. It was his job to ensure he promoted the movie’s themes and talked about his character. Garth had been a great role to play – he’d had his first ever male/male kiss – and the reviewers had already been more than excited about the film as a whole. But he was apprehensive about the one-way Messenger conversation with his mother. There her profile photo sat on his phone, to the right of his original message, no bubbles of a reply pending, no nothing. She had seen his words and had not answered.

  ‘You good, bud?’ Trent asked, looking up from his mobile.

  ‘Yeah,’ Seth answered. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Because you look a little pale, you know, for a half-Hispanic or whatever you are now.’

  ‘It’s the New York winter.’

  ‘Maybe you need one of those lamps for people who miss the summer, or a tanning session. You must have great tanning genes under there somewhere, right?’

  Seth smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t think anything you said is politically correct in any way.’

  ‘What?’ Trent asked, bemused.

  ‘Nothing,’ Seth said, looking at the empty water glass in his hands.

  ‘You want some more water?’

  ‘No, if I have more water I’ll wanna pee.’

  ‘OK, so listen, before you go in there I wanna give you a heads up about a few things that might come up.’

  ‘OK,’ Seth answered, eyeing his friend suspiciously.

  ‘So, I might have, you know, mentioned the Twitter thing with laraweekend when I spoke to publicity so it’s a possibility you might get a few questions about that.’

  ‘What?’ Seth exclaimed. ‘Why would you do that? What did you say?’

  ‘Whoa! Keep your pants on,’ Trent said, looking to the other waiting actors and sending them a smile.

  ‘What did you say, Trent?’

  ‘I just said that Lemur Girl had made a heartfelt plea to you on social media and you were showing her a good time in New York to help her mend her broken heart.’

  ‘I told you I didn’t want that sort of publicity,’ Seth said through gritted teeth.

  ‘And I told you I need to build up your brand, especially if you get the role of Sam. We need to make you first choice for these deep and meaningfuls, Seth. We don’t want them going to Christian Bale or Eddie Redmayne all the time, do we?’

  ‘Listen, about Lara—’

  ‘Is she a real pain in the ass? Because, if she’s turned all cray-cray, wanting-to-wipe-her-ass-with-the-napkin-you-used-at-lunch cray, then I could possibly try another angle. I was thinking of you hooking up with Mira Jackson for the premiere tomorrow.’

  ‘I think I’m falling in love with her.’

  ‘Hey, anybody with eyes in their head is in love with Mira Jackson. Male, female, non-binary …’

  ‘Not Mira Jackson,’ Seth said, annoyed. ‘Lara. I’m falling in love with Lara.’

  And this time he hadn’t said ‘I think’. Because he knew. Whatever connection they had, it was a real one and a strong one and he wanted to explore every part of it.

  ‘That’s a joke, right?’ Trent had a small smile on his lips like he was waiting for the punchline. ‘I mean, that’s you fucking with me, right? Nice one! Hilarious!’ He punched Seth’s shoulder.

  ‘No, Trent, it isn’t me fucking with you. I’m serious.’ He let out a breath. ‘Last night, I took Lara on a date and—’

  ‘What? No. No, no, no … a date? Like a real date? Not just photos for her Instagram? Are you out of your mind?’

  Seth didn’t remember them taking photos at all. They were too involved with each other. Conversation and eating and dancing all around the world …

  ‘This whole laraweekend thing was a godsend because it painted you as the good guy, you know, restoring her self-esteem after she got dumped. It’s you, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and saying, “you go, girl, girl power, girls are strong, girls can take rejection on the chin and then pick themselves up again and get on with their lives”. That does not work if you’re moving on in there a few weeks after she’s meant to be heartbroken by the love of her life!’

  Had Lara said Dan was the love of her life? If she had, he didn’t remember it. But she had said she hadn’t had any other boyfriend so, he guessed, Dan had been the love of her life … That didn’t feel so nice.

  ‘God, you didn’t sleep with her, did you?’ Trent hissed.

  ‘Will you keep your voice down?’ Seth begged.

  ‘This is me keeping my voice down. Which is kinda hard when what I really wanna do is ramp it up to announcer at the baseball game level and hit your sorry ass for a home run!’

  ‘I’m taking Lara to the premiere tomorrow night.’

  ‘No,’ Trent stated. ‘That’s not gonna work. Laraweekend should be used for light coffee chats, feeding the pigeons in the park, maybe a little break-up outfit shopping, not potential career-changing premiere red carpet events where she will have no clue what she’s doing.’

  ‘Did you just say the word “used”. She’s a person, Trent. Not a vacuum cleaner! And I’m taking her to the premiere as my date.’

  ‘Seth, you need to think carefully about this. You’re moving from nice, decent, Hallmark movie guy to slut-dropping guy from Magic Mike Live!’

  The door of the suite opened and a woman called to Seth. He got up from his seat then turned back to Trent. ‘I’m asking Lara to the premiere. She might not even wanna go. I don’t think the red carpet stuff will really be her thing. But, if she doesn’t wanna come, I don’t want you setting me up with anyone else. Have you got that?’

  Trent ducked his head down into a copy of Time Out.

  Fifty-One

  Chrysler Building, Lexington Avenue

  ‘Everything is so tall!’ Aldo’s voice echoed from Lara’s phone. She had her almost-brother and her dad on FaceTime and was panning around trying to capture a little of the snow-covered streets and some of NYC’s iconic buildings for them to see.

  ‘It’s three hundred and nineteen metres. But you can’t get to the top because it’s privately owned.’

  ‘When I was a lad,’ Gerry stated. ‘I used to think that Culver Street in Salisbury was like New York.’ He laughed then cleared his throat. ‘That was a long time ago. Before I’d been to London.’

  ‘Susie,’ Lara said. ‘Show my dad and Aldo your hot dog.’ She moved the camera to Susie’s traditional wiener she had just purchased – smoked sausage covered in brown mustard and sauerkraut.

  ‘I’m so hungry,’ Aldo responded immediately.

  ‘That does look good,’ Gerry agreed. ‘Not like those sausages Reg Mundy did on the barbecue for the fete last summer. There was nothing of them. One bite and they were done.’

  Lara turned the camera back round so she could see her dad and Aldo. It felt strange standing on the busy streets of New York while they were standing in the yard of the haulage company next to Tina. Here she was, close to one of the biggest Christmas trees in the world at the Rockefeller Center, and there they were, the small fake office tree just visible in the background.

&nbs
p; ‘So, how are things in Appleshaw?’ Lara asked, earning an elbow nudge from Susie.

  ‘Mrs Fitch got into a fight with Flora,’ Aldo said.

  ‘It wasn’t a fight,’ Gerry interrupted. ‘It was more of a …’

  ‘Face-off?’ Lara offered.

  ‘Bitch-slapping?’ Susie suggested through a mouthful of sausage.

  ‘A verbal discussion with … a bit of almost throttling,’ Gerry said.

  ‘With a string of angel bunting,’ Aldo added.

  ‘No!’ Lara exclaimed, trying hard not to laugh. ‘Are they all right?’

  ‘The angels?’ Aldo asked, eyebrow raising quizzically.

  ‘No, Mrs Fitch and Flora.’

  ‘Yes, they’re fine,’ Gerry answered. ‘It was Mrs Fitch and that ancient pricing gun again. She’d tagged one set of the angels at ninety-nine p and the others were three ninety-nine. Flora always has a nose for a bargain.’

  Susie shook her head in despair and mouthed ‘Appleshaw’ with another eye roll.

  ‘Dan kissed Chloe at the social club,’ Aldo blurted out.

  ‘Aldo!’ Gerry admonished. ‘I thought I told you that was not something we were going to share today.’

  Lara didn’t know what to say. This phone call had been a catch-up with her family, but, under Susie’s instruction, it had also been a fact-finding mission to see if any trace amounts of guilt were at all warranted. And now she had her definitive answer. Just like she had moved on – or a little bit sideways – kissing Seth, Dan was moving on with Chloe.

  ‘Sorry, Lara,’ Aldo said immediately.

  ‘No, Aldo, don’t be sorry. It’s fine,’ Lara said, as Susie put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her close.

  ‘Sweetheart, that bloke isn’t worth another second of your time,’ Gerry stated. She could see her dad was a little emotional. Always the one there to dry her tears, put on her plasters, tell her just how to land the best punch on the older Baxter brother at school …

  ‘Dad, it’s OK. It was actually what I needed to hear,’ Lara admitted. It did pain her a little to say it, but it was the truth. It was official. As black and white as it ever could be. She and Dan were over.