A Very Merry Manhattan Christmas

by A Very Merry Manhattan Christmas (retail) (epub)

  “Hmmm.”

  “You know…” Petra sighed.

  “Yes?”

  “Harry didn’t actually ask me like that.” She glanced around conspiratorially. “He didn’t make what I think of as a proper proposal.”

  “He didn’t?”

  Petra shook her head then moved closer to Lucie. “It was more of a… well… it doesn’t matter. It just wasn’t as romantic as I would have hoped.” She blew out her cheeks, then continued as if she couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Put it this way, he was drunk, he’d been misbehaving and I was annoyed. It was more of an ‘I guess the time has come’ than a declaration of undying love.” Petra seemed to shrink as she relayed these details, and Lucie’s heart ached for her.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Petra pulled herself upright. “It’s okay.” She plastered on a bright smile. “I got what I wanted, right? That is all that matters.”

  Lucie smiled in a way that she hoped was encouraging, but inside she was filled with pity. Poor Petra. For all her apparent snobbery, she had such an air of vulnerability. Not many people saw it, but Lucie did. She was probably one of the only ones who knew that Petra was not a complete spiky-edged ice-maiden, that underneath it all, she was just as lost as most people.

  * * *

  Three hours later, Lucie was slouched on a leather sofa in one of London’s trendy bars. The dim lighting was a blessing, since she knew her cheeks were red, her eye makeup was smudged and her hair now sat helmet-like on her head. The dress fitting had been exhausting and somewhat humiliating as she’d been measured, prodded and talked about as if she wasn’t actually there. As Petra, Joanna and Mariella had debated how best to make the curvy bridesmaid look just right for the wedding, so that she’d fit in with the rest, Lucie had allowed herself to drift away, enjoying memories of the night before at her flat with Dale. They’d shared an extra large pizza and giggled at that American TV show where the insane group of friends played pranks on one another. Of course, she now had to tell him that he was attending the wedding as her boyfriend, but seeing as she’d allowed his parents to believe it, she hoped he wouldn’t mind deceiving the wedding party too.

  By the time Mariella had finished with her, Lucie hadn’t a clue what the dress was going to look like. She’d been lost in the comfort of her daydreams. All she knew was that it was bright, silky and floaty and that she’d liked the sensation of the material against her skin. Whether it would suit her or not, she had no idea, and she didn’t really mind. It would be Petra’s day, after all, and Lucie wanted to help make it a good one. So even if she ended up resembling a pavlova, she’d do it with her head held high.

  They’d arrived at the bar to be greeted with a champagne spread apparently arranged by Harry, and Lucie had sunk two glasses of fizz immediately, keen to numb herself from the trauma of her dress fitting experience. It had worked nicely and now she was full of canapés – she might have had more than her fair share but the other bridesmaids hadn’t eaten a thing – and she was enjoying her third glass of Veuve Clicquot. She’d only allow herself one more drink, as she had to get the train back at four and she didn’t want to fall asleep and end up at the wrong station. She’d done that once before, after a night out with some people from work, and it hadn’t been pretty, especially when she’d been woken up by a policeman at the station who’d thought she needed medical assistance. She hadn’t, she’d just been in a very deep sleep and what he thought was blood down her front turned out to be the chilli sauce from her kebab. She cringed at the memory. The taxi home had cost a fortune and the grease had ruined a perfectly good blouse.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Lucie glanced up at the woman who’d approached her. She’d seen the pretty blonde at the boutique but hadn’t recognized her.

  “No, of course not. Help yourself.” Lucie patted the seat next to her and the woman sat down.

  “I’m Tania Fitzroy. Petra’s Maid of Honour.” She held out a hand and Lucie took it. Tania’s handshake was businesslike but her skin was cool and smooth as marble.

  “Lucie Quigley.”

  “Yes, I know. Lucie Quigley, Petra’s giggly friend from university. AKA giggly Quigley.”

  “Giggly Quigley?” Lucie vaguely recalled Petra calling her this once or twice a long time ago but she hadn’t thought the nickname had stuck. “Impressive that you know that. I’d quite forgotten it myself.” Lucie nodded. Affecting a light-hearted air had been part of the persona she’d tried to create for herself at university. No one had known her there, it had been a fresh start and she wanted to be the girl who had fun, the girl who didn’t give a damn, the girl whose mother hadn’t died in a car crash.

  “As Maid of Honour, I made – excuse the pun – it my business to know who the rest of the bridesmaids would be. I found out age, background, marital status and a few odd anecdotes to feed my speech. I needed a nickname for you all as part of the fun. It’s always good to make your audience laugh, don’t you agree? Especially with some rip-roaring stories from the past!” She widened her eyes as she said past, making Lucie think of a documentary she’d watched recently about people taking illegal drugs. They often had that half-crazed stare, and she wondered for a moment if Tania indulged or if she was just a bit loopy.

  Lucie gave a small smile, although she was a bit concerned now about which anecdotes Tania would be sharing. She couldn’t think of any terrible tales from her friendship with Petra, but Tania didn’t seem like the type to spare anyone’s dignity.

  She drained her glass and shrugged inwardly. The champagne had dulled her self-consciousness to an acceptable level, and she no longer cared if she was being judged. Tania certainly wouldn’t be calling her giggly Quigley if she’d known her growing up. She’d let it go, though. No sense fighting it, and it didn’t really matter. Better to be known as giggly Quigley than the sad, quiet one.

  “She’s making a mistake, you know?” Tania raised an eyebrow as she gazed at Petra. The bride-to-be was browsing the canapé selection, her hand hovering over each one then withdrawing, no doubt after she counted the calories.

  “What, eating?”

  “No!” Tania frowned at Lucie. “Marrying Harry. It’ll end in tears.”

  Lucie sat up, suddenly alert. “You think so?”

  “Of course. Petra is making a huge mistake going through with this debacle. He doesn’t love her. Not at all.”

  Lucie stared at Tania, taking in her shoulder length blonde hair, a shade or two lighter than her own, and shining with health and vitality. In profile, the woman was very similar to Petra, but she was about six pounds heavier, slim but not as gaunt as her friend, and slightly shorter. Her pneumatic breasts strained at a black silk vest top, and Lucie guessed that she’d probably had some form of enhancement. Harry had tried several times to convince Petra to have a boob job, but she hadn’t been keen. In fact, as a frequent flier, she’d been terrified of having implants in case they exploded during a long haul flight, so she’d resisted, although it seemed that she had now had work done on her face. Lucie couldn’t understand why a man would want to change the woman he loved. Wasn’t true love about desiring someone just the way they were? If it was true love, of course.

  Tania wasn’t beautiful in the supermodel way that Petra was, but she was certainly attractive. Yet she had an edge to her as she stared at Petra, as if she was evaluating the bride-to-be’s every move, every word, every thought. It could have been the champagne affecting Lucie’s judgement, but there was something about Tania that made her uneasy, as if she was a tigress about to pounce or a snake about to bite.

  “Have you spoken to Petra about this?” Lucie placed her glass on the table in front of the sofa.

  “I’ve tried but she won’t hear it. She’s determined to be Mrs Harry Goldsmith at any cost.”

  “But you’re her Maid of Honour. Surely you should try to get her to see sense… if that’s how you feel.”

  Tania turned stern hazel eyes on Lucie. “It’s no
t just how I feel, it’s the truth. But she won’t listen, so now she’ll have to deal with the consequences.” She rooted around in her designer handbag and pulled out a small brown container with a white label. Lucie caught sight of small black writing, but couldn’t read it from that angle. “I’ve such a headache.” She unscrewed the lid and shook three small white pills onto her palm. She thumbed them for a moment, before throwing them into her mouth and following up with a gulp of champagne. Lucie tried not to stare. Or to judge. This was how other people lived. Some of them.

  “You could try talking to her, Lucie. Perhaps she’d listen to you. She always speaks so fondly of you.”

  Lucie looked from Tania to Petra and back again. Was this woman she’d only just met correct? Should she interfere, try to get Petra to see that things weren’t right with Harry? But what evidence did she have? An old hunch and the word of a stranger?

  “I don’t think it’s really my place. What if you’re wrong? I mean… how do you know?” Lucie picked up her glass, but it was empty so she put it down again.

  Tanis shook her head slowly and placed a finger on her glossy lips. “Can’t say. It’s private. But if you won’t tell her to reconsider… then it will all end in tears. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Tania stood and straightened her silky tunic before bending right over, graceful as a ballet dancer, to run a hand down each trouser leg. She sprang back up, and with a shake of her blonde mane she was gone, leaving Lucie with her empty glass and a sinking feeling in her belly. She wanted to talk to someone about what Tania had said, and about her own concerns. She wanted to speak to Dale and ask his advice but he would probably still be at work, Saturday or not, and it wasn’t the sort of conversation to have over the phone.

  Instead, she thought about what Dale would say. Probably tell her to stay out of it, not to interfere. She didn’t see Petra and Harry that often, so she had no real basis for her concerns. Just a hunch and now the word of a woman who could well be genuine, but who could also have her own ulterior motives.

  She had no right to go to Petra and ruin her happiness, however fragile it might be. No right at all. She had no evidence to present to her friend, and saying something would only cause Petra pain.

  Yet as she gathered her things and walked over to her old friend to say goodbye, what Tania had said nagged at her like toothache. What if Petra was making a huge mistake, and Harry didn’t love her as she deserved? Or, what if Petra was well aware of this and was going into the marriage with her eyes wide open? They had experienced a turbulent relationship, so Petra wasn’t some naïve eighteen year old marrying her very own Prince Charming. Petra knew what she was doing, what she wanted, where she was headed. Of course she did.

  The thoughts swirled around Lucie’s head for the rest of the afternoon. As the train carried her past fields and trees, houses and high-rises, industrial estates and wasteland, Lucie couldn’t help wondering if she should have tried to talk to Petra. Other people’s lives could be so complicated, so confusing and so disturbing. She was glad to get back to her flat and settle into the comfort of her own predictable life.

  Chapter 6

  Lucie pulled her scarf up around her cheeks. An icy wind was howling across the park, battering the skeletal trees and stealing their remaining leaves, and she wondered at the wisdom of agreeing to a Sunday stroll with Dale.

  “See!” he said, pulling his grey wool hat down over his ears. “I told you it would blow the cobwebs away.”

  “Dale, it’s the first week of December. It’ll likely freeze the cobwebs.”

  “Well, after all that champagne yesterday I thought you could do with clearing your head.”

  Lucie nodded. He was right. When she’d got back to the flat, she’d briefly texted him to let him know how it went. She’d been a bit tipsy and a trifle muddled by all that she’d heard. Petra’s world was so complicated, and one that she didn’t really know if she wanted to become involved in. Still, she didn’t see the bride-to-be that often, and after the wedding, she’d probably see her even less. So if she played her role as bridesmaid, she could free herself from any future social obligations. With these thoughts swirling in her alcohol-fuddled brain, she’d crawled into bed and slept right through to nine-thirty this morning.

  “You’re right. It’s certainly helping with that.” She gazed at the black shapes of the trees with their branches reaching into the leaden sky, shuddering in the wind as if shaking in the cold, just like she was. At least it wasn’t raining – but that was mainly because the clouds were being whipped along so violently. Something about the bleakness of the landscape tore at her heart but then didn’t everyone feel that way? Spring was a time of optimism; winter was one of gloom.

  “You okay, Luce?” Dale nudged her.

  “Just thinking about how grim winter is.”

  Dale sniffed. His nose was pink and his eyes watered. “It can be. But I try to think of it as the season when the old is cleared away in preparation for the new.”

  The old family cleared away to make room for a new one? Wasn’t that what some people did?

  “It just reminds me of how quickly time passes. I mean, one minute it’s summer, then before I know it, December’s here again. You’d think I’d be over it all by now, wouldn’t you?”

  “Lucie, be kind to yourself. You can’t help feeling like you do about Christmas. People dislike different times for different reasons. Look at how teachers hate September because it means they’re going back to work after a long summer holiday, but then parents all over the country are sighing with relief that their kids are out of the way again.”

  Lucie laughed. “I don’t mind September term. I like meeting the new pupils and looking ahead to a fresh year. But then, I’m not the class teacher with all that responsibility, so I guess I can understand how they feel.” She thought of the familiar moans and groans in the staff room every year when the autumn term resumed, and the countdown to half-term that began immediately. So many times she’d heard teachers say that it was just four weeks or just two weeks until they broke up, then following it up with a comment about how they needed to stop wishing their lives away. Then someone else would chirp in with a story about someone they knew who’d dropped dead at forty-five and they’d all agree to count their blessings… until the next break time.

  “Losing your mum on Christmas Eve is something you’re never going to forget, Lucie. Ever. Talk about rubbish timing. Don’t get me wrong, it would have been a tragedy whenever it happened, but for you it also means that you hate Christmas.”

  Even if the car hadn’t crashed, I’d still have lost her anyway. My childhood would have been ruined by the one woman who should have been making it better. Who should have been there for me.

  Dale knew about the accident, obviously. But there were things that Lucie had learned about her mother that she hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even Dale. She just couldn’t bear it, as if saying it aloud would somehow make it real. If she didn’t say it, it didn’t really happen that way. Her mother had loved her to the end and nothing could change that. She had been torn away from Lucie and her father by a tragic accident. That was bad enough.

  “I know.”

  “And then that loser Jamie… well…” Dale shrugged. “You were always better off without him.”

  Lucie sighed, and watched as her breath came out white in the icy air. Dale was right. They’d spoken about these things so many times, but he never seemed irritated by her inability to let them go. He always listened patiently and reassured her. Lucie just hoped that she was as good a friend to Dale in return.

  They reached the entrance to the park and Dale grinned. “Fancy another circuit?”

  “Dale, I can’t feel my toes and I’m sure I have frostbite in my nose. If I lose a toe or two, I’ll never look the same in flip-flops again.”

  “You’re not used to being outdoors. You’re too accustomed to central heating and easy living, Quigley.”

  “Is that ri
ght, Bear Grylls?” She pulled a face at him.

  “Careful, you’ll get stuck like that.”

  “Whatever! Then I’ll be the most interesting of Petra’s bridesmaids won’t I? I already look out of place compared to their perfection.”

  “You’re perfect just the way you are.” He held her gaze for a moment and a warm tingling spread through her body. Lucie took a step closer to him, as if drawn by a magnet, and she wobbled on her toes as a powerful gust of wind buffeted them. She put her hand out to steady herself and it connected with Dale’s hard chest.

  She looked at her hand. Then looked up at Dale.

  Something flashed across his face but it disappeared quickly and Lucie wondered if she’d even seen it. Whatever it was.

  “How about I buy you a hot chocolate?” he asked, breaking the spell. He held out his arm and she tucked her hand under his elbow.

  “That’s the best idea you’ve had in ages. And if we get inside immediately, I might get to keep all of my toes.”

  * * *

  Lucie draped her hat and coat on the old-fashioned stand in the corner and took a seat at a table by the window. The small cafe was warm and cosy, a haven from the bitter cold of the December afternoon. Lights twinkled around the windows, bright against the dull afternoon sky, and in spite of herself she felt a flicker of joy. Whatever her feelings about Christmas, even Lucie couldn’t resist the smell of cinnamon, coffee and cake.

  She sat still, gazing out through the glass with its misty edges. The next few weeks would be very busy, with everything going on at school and getting ready to go away for the wedding. She needed to check her passport, although she was certain it was still valid from when she’d renewed it while considering a last minute sunshine break a few years ago. She hadn’t gone, of course. Something had cropped up and before she knew it, the holidays were over and she was back at work, promising herself she’d do something next year. She’d even suggested to Dale that they go away together, but he’d frowned and said that with so much going on with the business and his house renovations, he didn’t think it was the best time. But now they were getting a break, and in one of the most exciting cities in the world.