One Wish In Manhattan (A Christmas Story)

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘Work experience,’ Cynthia repeated as Hayley pushed the mop back onto Angel. The woman sounded a little confused and Hayley couldn’t blame her.

  ‘Yes, and …’ Hayley stuttered.

  ‘My mother is an actress,’ Angel blurted out. ‘But I want to do something real.’ She smiled. ‘And the world will always need cleaners.’

  Hayley smiled at Cynthia.

  ‘Come in,’ Cynthia said, stepping aside.

  Hayley gave Angel a glare and moved over the threshold and into the impressive hall. She dragged the basket over the doorway.

  The house was show-home ready, with dark wooden floors, pale painted walls and large windows letting in every sliver of light available. If there was any mess or dust, it certainly wasn’t in the hall or up the sweeping staircase that trailed a path to a balcony. This might turn into a Camilla and not a Diana after all.

  ‘Ms Rogers-Smythe called and said she had someone new for me. I can’t stay, I have a meeting to get to,’ Cynthia said.

  ‘We understand,’ Angel said, nodding soberly. ‘You must be very busy.’

  Hayley watched Cynthia study her daughter and wished the woman had to leave now, before Angel could get another sentence out of her mouth.

  ‘Yes and I have a small gathering here tonight, which is why I need the house cleaned this afternoon.’

  The shine coming from the floor said nothing but sanitation. Hayley wasn’t sure how she was going to get this place any cleaner than it was, unless there was the mother of all destruction in the lounge room.

  ‘Leave it with us,’ Angel responded.

  ‘Me,’ Hayley jumped in, glaring at her daughter. ‘Leave it with me.’

  Cynthia was looking at them like they were both crazy and Hayley didn’t blame her one bit. It was like a scene from a situation comedy, except it wasn’t fiction, somehow this laughable situation was now her life.

  Cynthia took a black, expensive-looking woollen coat from a dark wood stand and put it on.

  ‘That’s a lovely coat,’ Hayley blurted out. ‘A hound’s-tooth scarf would really set it off.’

  ‘Really?’ Cynthia responded, looking sceptical.

  Hayley felt the blush hit her cheeks. She was as bad as Angel.

  ‘Or a hat,’ Angel added, nodding.

  Hayley took hold of Angel’s arm and squeezed, directing her behind her own body. Perhaps Angel was right about the hat. Maybe her daughter was inheriting her fashion instincts.

  Cynthia smiled at them as she buttoned up her coat and took a step towards the door. She turned back. ‘If you need anything, just ask Sophia.’

  As if she’d been summoned, a short dark-haired woman of something like Puerto Rican origin appeared from another room. Hayley smiled awkwardly. Housekeeper? Couldn’t she clean?

  ‘Have a lovely meeting!’ Angel said a little too enthusiastically.

  Cynthia stopped on the doorstep and Hayley tried to keep Angel behind her.

  ‘Your house is going to be Diana-ed to perfection by the time you’re done.’ Hayley nodded and dipped her body into a bow. Why had she bowed? Was that in the Majestic remit?

  Cynthia was looking even more bewildered now and Hayley didn’t blame her. This whole situation was farcical. As Cynthia left the house, Hayley swung the door shut, leaning heavily against it. It took a second for her to realise she was being scrutinised by Sophia. The dark-haired woman was looking at them both with suspicion in her eyes. Hayley straightened up, putting her hands to her hat and adjusting it. Then she clapped her hands together and met Sophia’s gaze. ‘So, show me the dirt!’

  Central Park, New York

  Oliver didn’t know where he was going but he knew he couldn’t go back to the office in this frame of mind. It was like the city was spinning, the high rises falling forward, threatening to spill all over him like some big budget disaster movie. He felt sick, his stomach sat in his chest, pressure crushing him, breathing shallow. Putting one foot in front of the other through the snow-lined paths of the park felt like walking a high wire.

  His mother and Andrew Regis. That was what her visit to the office was about the other day. She’d wrapped it up in a Christmas invitation, tested the water, then, when it all blew up, she threw the McArthur Foundation at him and chickened out. He shook his head, looking across the park to a family playing in the snow. Just like the Drummonds had, all those years ago.

  He bent down, sinking his hands into the freezing cold white stuff. He let his fingers rest there until the icy feeling started to burn his skin hot. What was happening to him? He’d never felt more out of control in every area of his life.

  He balled the snow up into his palms, rolling it around in his hands, pressing and squeezing, shaping it hard. Maybe he should pretend it was Andrew Regis’s head. Did that make him immature? Was it wrong to be so affected by the news his mother was moving on romantically? His father had been dead a while. The emotion knotted in his throat. No, something about it was off. Just how long had it been going on?

  He stood up, pulled his arm back and launched the snowball into orbit, not caring where it landed or who it might hit. He punched his reddened hands down into his pockets and watched the ball smash into a litter bin. What would Ben do?

  He shrugged his shoulders up and down, attempting to warm his body. Why was he thinking that? It was pointless. Ben wasn’t here and they were two different people. Very different people. Ben had been adored. He had just been the second child. The add-on. The second screen subscription on Netflix no one was really sure they wanted but had anyway, just in case. Just in case what? Something happened to the first one? Well it had, the first one was gone.

  His eyes went to the newspaper seller on the corner, where the park met the street. Even from this distance he could still make out his photo. One Wish in Manhattan. He shook his head. Lois. Hayley. He couldn’t imagine why she had done this. To get back at him for making fun of her wish? It seemed extreme. And it hurt. Bad press he could deal with. Her kissing him then selling him out? Well, it burned.

  He needed something. A pick-me-up. Just enough distraction to get him through the day. It seemed the welcoming lights of a bar were beckoning him from across the street.

  * * *

  Westchester, New York

  There was no pit of doom in the lounge or anywhere else. Nothing was out of place in the entire house. Not one cushion needed plumping, not one rug needed vacuuming and Hayley could see her reflection in all the surfaces. She had no idea what she was supposed to do to make it different. Angel was humming ‘Jingle Bells’ on a loop, pushing a J-cloth up and down the windowsill and she was polishing the life out of the ornaments that already glittered as much as the diamonds in Tiffany’s. Suddenly Angel stopped humming and looked to Hayley.

  ‘There aren’t any photos!’ her daughter announced.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There aren’t any photos in here, or in any of the other rooms,’ Angel stated.

  Hayley’s eyes shot to the main display cabinet and saw her daughter was right. Photos were what made a house a home. Not these stylish, funny-shaped ornaments, the urns of flowers, the chenille cushions and the deep pile rugs. There was nothing in the décor that said anything about the people who lived in the house. The furnishings shouted money but that was all.

  ‘She seemed quite nice,’ Angel remarked, a delicate sigh leaving her lips.

  ‘The fact she doesn’t have any photos on display doesn’t make her horrible.’

  ‘We could look in the drawers,’ Angel suggested.

  ‘Angel!’

  ‘I just thought, if it’s a Diana, the personal touch, the focus on the family … We could see if there are some photos and put them out.’

  ‘No, we can’t.’ Hayley shook her head. ‘I’ve been a member of Majestic Cleaning for only a few hours. I’m pretty sure in all those terms and conditions I haven’t read yet there will be a big fat piece about confidentiality, and opening clients’ drawers will be punishable by th
e electric chair.’

  ‘New York doesn’t have the death penalty actually. And only five states still use the electric chair. There’s Alabama, Florida …’ Angel started.

  ‘How do you even know that?’

  Angel put her hands on her hips. ‘So what do we do?’ She looked at her watch. ‘We have an hour left.’

  Hayley looked around the lounge. Despite the warm gold, red and brown furnishings, the atmosphere was cold. The cream-coloured mantle surrounded an open fire that didn’t look like it had been lit for a while. The ornaments were all square-edged and uniform – they didn’t look like trinkets picked up from travels or well-loved reminders of experiences. And there wasn’t a sniff of Christmas anywhere.

  ‘I could open the drawers,’ Angel stated. ‘She thinks my name’s Charlotte and I’m not technically employed so I technically wouldn’t be breaking the rules.’

  Was this a bad idea? She should be taking advantage of the fact there wasn’t much to do. But, on the other hand, she was a part-time party planner. Fashion, dressing and décor was her thing. She had an excellent eye and there was no doubt this place was certainly lacking in something. She turned to Angel. ‘I’ll keep that Sophia busy, you check the drawers.’

  * * *

  It was a completely altered space. The fire was pumping out heat, crackling with bundles of twigs Angel had obtained from the garden and some coal Sophia had reluctantly found for them. Hayley was sure the housekeeper thought they were certifiable, especially after Angel had barricaded the door and said she would have no access until they were finished.

  Hayley stood back from the flames and admired their handiwork. They’d found votives to put in the bare candle cups, and three framed photographs in a drawer. Cynthia and a man both looking so happy, dressed in bright, flashy clothes, then two bare-chested boys of about ten, arms around each other, ice cream staining their lips, and finally another of the darker-haired boy a little older, a certificate held proudly in his hands. Angel had trailed a string of white lights they’d found in a box of Christmas decorations in the cupboard around the candles and the photos. It transformed the room from something neat, clean-lined but cold into somewhere homely, a house with the family back at its heart.

  She looked to her left as Angel let out a grunt of dissatisfaction from her precarious position on something antique-looking.

  ‘Don’t you fall off that and break something. It looks expensive,’ Hayley said, moving across the room.

  ‘I love your concern for me, Mum.’ Angel stretched a little further and looped a green, gold and red garland over the curtain pole.

  ‘If it’s remotely Edwardian or Victorian or even from the fifties, I think I’ll need to clean for an era to pay for it.’

  ‘Please, Miss Majestic Cleaning. You need to let me in now. Mrs Cynthia will be back at any moment.’ It was Sophia’s voice from behind the door, blocked off by a heavy nest of tables.

  ‘I wish we had a tree,’ Angel mused, getting down from the table and dusting her footmarks off with the sleeve of her top. It was probably the most dust the table had ever seen.

  ‘Here or at Uncle Dean’s?’ Hayley asked.

  ‘Both.’ Angel lifted the magazine rack up from the side of the sofa. ‘Where shall I put this?’

  Squinting at the newspaper through the slats in the wood, Hayley moved closer to her daughter, her eyes on the photograph on the front page. ‘Is that …?’

  ‘What?’ Angel asked.

  Hayley plucked the newspaper from the rack and straightened it out.

  ‘Miss Majestic Cleaning! I must insist you let me in here now. This is not what happen.’

  ‘Maybe we should let her in now,’ Angel suggested.

  Hayley didn’t respond. She was too busy looking at the photo of Oliver and reading the article about the serial single granting wishes to the female population of New York.

  ‘Mum!’ Angel said a little louder.

  Something was tugging on her insides. This article was picking him apart, painting him as a megalomaniac, a loner who used women.

  ‘Is that Mr Meanie?’ Angel asked, leaning in to get a better look at the photograph.

  ‘Don’t call him that, Angel. It’s not nice.’

  ‘He doesn’t remember the names of anyone who works for him.’

  ‘Do you think Donald Trump remembers the names of all the people that work for him?’ Hayley countered.

  ‘Uncle Dean doesn’t work for Donald Trump.’

  ‘Miss Majestic Cleaning! Open this door!’ Sophia screamed.

  Hayley shoved the newspaper back into the rack. ‘Put it in the gap between the bookshelves and the fire, it will fit well there.’

  She waited until Angel had set the magazine holder down before shifting the nest of tables away from the door.

  ‘Ready, Charlotte?’ she asked her daughter.

  Angel nodded. ‘Ready, Agatha.’

  Hayley whisked open the door, preparing for the housekeeper to fall into the room with urgency, only to see her across the hallway with Cynthia. Hayley watched the housekeeper buzzing around the homeowner like an anxious bee whose hive had been invaded. Cynthia slipped off her black woollen coat and hung it on the stand.

  ‘I want to say, Mrs Cynthia, that I had no idea what they were doing and it was not at all like usual,’ Sophie spoke as Cynthia strode towards the lounge.

  ‘I hope your meeting went well,’ Angel said, stepping into the hallway and closing up the door again as Cynthia approached the doorjamb.

  ‘Very well thank you.’ She smiled at Angel. ‘So what have you been doing that’s got my housekeeper so flustered?’

  ‘We’ve gone through the house from top to bottom primping and preening and …’ Hayley started.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Angel whispered, looking directly at the older woman.

  Hayley held her breath. The tone coating the simple request was heavy with meaning. Angel had enjoyed transforming this room today. It meant something to her. Family. Warmth. The heart of the home. Hayley knew she had done her best to be Angel’s family, but she also knew there had always been something missing. A father-shaped hole. She was going to make sure she found the father, the fitting into it was going to be up to him.

  Without answering, Cynthia simply shut her eyes and let Angel take her hand. Hayley swallowed and hoped this was going to go down well or the hours they had spent here might not be profitable. There was a chance it could get her sacked. Within twenty-four hours.

  Angel swung the door open, leading Cynthia into the lounge. Sophia let out a blood-curdling scream and Cynthia instinctively opened her eyes before she had travelled more than half a dozen steps.

  ‘Why do you do this? You have no right to do this! I am going to call Ms Rogers-Smythe right away,’ Sophia exclaimed, her accent strengthening as her voice quickened.

  What had they done? The housekeeper was behaving like they had dressed the room with sacrificed animals. It was only a few decorations and Hayley had called a halt to Angel using the snow spray.

  Hayley looked at Cynthia. She was trembling, a hand clamped over her mouth, her eyes glistening with tears. This wasn’t the reaction she had hoped for. This was a disaster. She looked to Angel. Her mouth was hanging open as she stared at Cynthia.

  ‘We can fix this,’ Hayley said, stepping further into the room. ‘I will fix this straight away and I won’t leave until it’s back to the way it was. No, scratch that, until it’s better than the way it was.’ She headed for the mantelpiece.

  ‘No,’ Cynthia said, her voice gravelly with emotion.

  Hayley stopped moving, stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do next. A simple cleaning job in a house that wasn’t even dirty and she couldn’t even get that right. She was a big fat failure.

  ‘Just go,’ Cynthia said, the tears finally escaping.

  Hayley motioned to Angel to come towards her but the girl was looking like she’d been petrified. Her eyes were like round saucers, her skin pale, her mou
th still agape. Hayley leant forward and grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her towards the door.

  ‘Can I just say …?’ Hayley started. She needed to say something. Apologise.

  ‘No,’ Cynthia responded. ‘You may not.’

  Hayley swallowed. That was clear enough. Sophia was looking at them both as if they were devil worshippers who had decked the room with essence of voodoo. She didn’t dare say another thing.

  She shunted a dazed Angel towards the front door. ‘Come on, this is not a tragedy, Angel. It’s just something that didn’t quite work out. A tragedy is the war in Syria or a tsunami. This is just a blip. And it isn’t our fault.’

  Angel shook her head. ‘No, it isn’t our fault.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s all mine.’

  25

  Dean Walker’s Apartment, Downtown Manhattan

  ‘Ta da! Here it is!’

  Hayley raised her head from the pizza box on her lap to see Dean put something in front of Angel. A tablet. The Globe. Hayley swallowed as she watched Angel make no reaction. She hadn’t touched her pizza either.

  ‘What’s going on here? This morning you were super excited to see this,’ Dean commented.

  Angel flicked her eyes over the piece of technology. ‘It looks great.’

  Dean looked to Hayley then and she shrugged. What could she tell him without giving up her secret life as a cleaner?

  ‘I’ll look at it,’ Hayley said, reaching out a hand for the tablet.

  ‘Not with grease on your fingers you won’t.’ Dean snatched back the Globe and hugged it to his chest.

  ‘Surely it has to go through a grease test,’ Hayley said. ‘Everyday use will involve dirt and grime, toast crumbs and tea … beer spills.’

  ‘You’ve just told me so much about your diet.’

  Angel put the lid back over her pizza and pushed it onto the coffee table. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Hayley watched Dean pay greater attention then. ‘You’re not sick, are you?’ He took a step forward and pressed the back of his hand to Angel’s forehead.