Hanukkah at the Great Greenwich Ice Creamery: A heart-warming Christmas romance full of surprises

by Sharon Ibbotson

  ‘No, no,’ he begged, out loud and unthinking. ‘No, don’t turn away.’

  He reached out to take her face now, pulling it back to his own, only wanting her to meet his eyes, not to hide anything from him. But she surprised him by suddenly pressing her lips against his own.

  He was fairly certain that, for just a moment, his heart stopped beating within his chest. He was fairly certain that this, just this brief press of her lips against his, would be the end of him, and that in exchange for this pleasure he would go gladly. She tasted of apples and fresh water and everything he had ever wanted in life, and when she pulled away, he felt bereft and broken.

  Her eyes were glowing, and he was certain that if he looked in a mirror his would be too. She was blushing hard as she bit on her lip, and she nodded at him as if making sure he was okay.

  Even if she could hear, he would be too speechless to talk. So, he simply nodded, and she brought her fingers together on both hands before bringing her hands together.

  Kiss.

  He made the sign back. Kiss. He made it again. And then once more.

  She obliged him, pressing her lips to his one more time. It was, yet again, chaste and gentle. But Cohen had never been more excited.

  He’d never been more hopeful.

  She stood suddenly, walking across the room to the ice cream counter. She reached in, filling two cups with a pale peach-coloured ice cream. She brought them back to the table, sliding one before him. She made a gesture with one hand by her cheek, as though squeezing a ball.

  He tasted the ice cream and understood.

  Orange.

  He nodded at her, before reciting back the signs he had learned. Apple. Sandwich. Water. Orange. Kiss.

  Her smile was proud and happy. Her smile, he realised, was everything.

  They ate their ice cream in companionable silence. It was sweet, tart and tangy on the tongue.

  And Cohen knew, without a doubt, that he was coming back here next Tuesday.

  Chapter Three

  Bitter Chocolate

  Cohen first met Christine in Bar 54, one of those God-awful rooftop places that served drinks so expensive you might as well fling your wallet into the city below while signing away your children’s college funds. He’d just sunk six hundred and fifty dollars on a bottle of 2008 Napa Valley red the barman assured him was ‘quite interesting’, before smuggling it into the only corner of the lounge that wasn’t crawling with tourists.

  He drank his wine steadily as daylight turned into night behind the New York City skyline, a sunset that Bar 54 milked with their over-inflated prices and pretentious wine list. Six hundred and fifty dollars on a Californian wine, really? Cohen winced. He was by no means a wine snob, but this was only a Napa Valley, for God’s sake. His father, who drank only the cheapest black-market Scotch he could get his hands on – ‘because taxes and import duties are only for mugs, Cohen’ – would be so ashamed of him.

  But as always, it was better if Cohen didn’t think of Jim Ford, or the reason he was there in a flashy bar near Times Square anyway.

  It was better if he didn’t think of words like ‘cancer’, or ‘hospice’, or of phrases like ‘this is your last chance to see him’, or ‘don’t inflict a lonely death on an old man, Cohen’.

  And so he drank his overpriced wine in an overpriced bar, minding his own business as always, when a sultry looking woman appeared in his peripheral vision.

  ‘Hey.’ Cohen signalled to her. ‘Can I get some bar snacks over here? Maybe some salted nuts?’

  The look she gave him was one of pure disdain.

  ‘Do I look like a salted nuts kind of girl?’ she asked, a hand on her hip.

  For the first time, Cohen considered her. His mistake was genuine. On a passing glance, he honestly had thought her a waitress. She had that hardened, well-groomed look that the high-end server community seemed to have patented.

  But on a second, closer inspection, he could see that he was mistaken. There was little chance this girl had ever held a tray in her life. Petite and thin, with a shock of dark hair, she was too expensive looking to ever be a waitress. Her hands were manicured and soft, her arms tanned and waxed. Her cheekbones were high, set below ice-blue eyes, and her make-up immaculately softened the sharp lines of her face. Was she beautiful? Yes, undoubtedly. But it was a forced beauty, the kind brought about through good contouring and well-tended hair styling. Cohen was under no illusions as he took her in. He understood that there was nothing natural about this woman whatsoever. But still, she’d dressed to impress in a short skirt, fitted blouse and fuck-me-boots, and it took him only a few seconds to reach a decision.

  Alright, Cohen thought. He would. The shoes had spoken and let it be so. Who was he to argue with four inches of stiletto?

  ‘Well,’ he leant back in his chair. ‘What sort of snacks are you offering?’

  Her gaze was frigid as it passed over him.

  ‘I’m afraid all I have might be a little rich for your tastes.’

  He smirked. ‘Try me.’

  He watched as the woman’s eyes drifted over him again, taking in his six-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, the expensive cut of his suit and the uncalloused smoothness of his hands. There was nothing blue collar at all about Cohen, nothing to indicate anything other than a life of wealth and affluence. He was fourth-generation wealth, the son of Esther Sedler and heir apparent to Sedler Enterprises, and it showed.

  She slid into the seat beside him, letting him know that he had passed her little test. He looked her up and down again, appraising his choice for the evening.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Cohen asked, pouring her some of the Napa.

  ‘Christine.’ Her reply was cool, aloof even. Cohen wasn’t fazed, for he knew this game. It was one he’d played before, many times. Christine was making sure he knew she was hard to get, even harder to keep. She was telling him she was something he was going to have to work for. She was setting up hoops and making him jump. And jump he would, using his sizeable wallet to cushion the inevitable fall.

  He spent the evening wining and dining the delicate, slightly out-of-reach Christine. She was an actress, she eventually admitted, but an actress in a strange position of being both in demand and yet completely out-of-work.

  ‘I mean, can you really see me in a toothpaste commercial?’ she spat, without waiting for a reply. ‘I told my agent that I would absolutely do a shampoo ad, or even, at a push, hand cream ... but toothpaste? I’m a little more high-end than that, don’t you think?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘—I’m Christine Carter,’ she continued bitterly. ‘I was in an episode of Game of Thrones. I played a chicken farmer. I don’t do toothpaste.’

  All the same, Cohen took Christine home that night and bedded her eagerly, although between the sheets, just as in life, she was detached and somewhat cold.

  Cohen didn’t take her lack of response personally. If anything, she became a mountain to climb, a goal to score. He was determined to win her over, if only to prove that he could.

  Besides, he was tired of being single. Tired of coming home to an empty bed at night, and tired leaving an empty apartment in the morning. He was tired of evenings spent alone. Tired of being too often left with his own thoughts, haunted by his own memories, alone in this prison of his own making.

  Did he love Christine? It wasn’t a question he liked to ponder; a can of worms he was never quite ready to open. After all, Cohen wasn’t certain he even knew what love was. But Christine was at least a warm body in his bed and someone to come home to at night. A living, breathing person who took an interest in him and his life.

  She had to take an interest in him.

  He paid a lot of money to make certain she took an interest in him.

  Expensive gym memberships, a new car, a hefty clothes allowance and free-range of his Manhattan penthouse. Jewellery, perfumes, exotic holidays. He left Christine in no doubt that he was her bread and butter, and that he kept that
bread liberally spread with jam to make certain that she would never leave him. He married her, giving her his grandmother’s prized diamond and sapphire ring, the first of many payments towards the debt he created out of a living, breathing woman.

  Naturally, Esther hated her.

  ‘All I wanted,’ Esther told him tightly, ‘was a nice, friendly Jewish girl. She didn’t have to be pretty. She didn’t have to be clever. Just a nice girl I could take to temple now and again. And what do you bring me? A bony actress with over plucked eyebrows and a resting bitch face so tight you’d think Moses himself had commanded she wear it. She’s so obviously a gold-digger, Cohen.’

  Obviously, Cohen agreed. He was under no illusions where Christine was concerned. He knew that just like everything else in his life, his wife was something to be paid for.

  And pay he did. He paid then and he still paid now, and he would continue to do so every God damn month for the foreseeable future until some other poor schmuck had the misfortune to marry her.

  He was sitting in The Great Greenwich Ice Creamery, waiting for River’s lunch break, when another email came in from Christine’s lawyer. It wasn’t good news but nor was it unexpected, and Cohen read over it with a deep sigh.

  Christine wasn’t happy with the current terms of her alimony and wanted to discuss how much money Cohen would be happy to part with in order to correct this matter. In return, she might be willing to part with his grandmother’s diamond ring before Christmas, although obviously she was very fond of it and while legally it was hers, she understood that morally it could be his, though for the right price, obviously ...

  Morals. Cohen felt his fist clench, his blood pressure rise. He didn’t think Christine even knew what they were.

  He slammed his phone down on the table so hard that the screen shattered in his hand, and once again, he was bleeding in the ice creamery. Blood seeped from his hand, a sticky rivulet snaking down his wrist onto the table and then across the remnants of his phone below. There was a large shard of glass embedded into the fleshy mound of his thumb, and the pain was a burning reminder that everything in his life – his pitiful, lonely life – was messed up and awful.

  He sat, breathing heavily, unmoving, when he felt a gentle hand wrap itself around his wrist. Momentarily, he closed his eyes, breathing in the close scent of vanilla and honey, before looking up.

  There she was, the reminder that perhaps not everything in his life was messed up and awful. River de Luca, the living embodiment of all he longed for in life.

  Happiness, warmth, light and compassion. He stared at her sadly, and she gave his wrist a gentle squeeze.

  He’d almost not come to the ice creamery today. He’d woken in the morning, gone to the mirror, and seen in the glass the bitter and hard-hearted man he thought himself to be. He’d gripped the sink and berated himself for being so easily won over by a woman. He’d chewed on his lip and hated himself for being so quickly entranced by a pair of hazel eyes and the flutter of a gingham apron. As he made his morning coffee – black, no sugar – he tried to tell himself that he really was the man the world thought him to be. A man who didn’t have time for a chestnut-haired woman in a small shop in Greenwich. A man who sneered at sweetness and was downright disdainful of ice cream.

  He'd made it as far as King’s Cross before he inexplicably found himself changing tube lines and then switched onto the DLR, watching the underground tunnels of London fly by before stepping into the light at Greenwich and rubbing his eyes.

  He’d tried not to come and yet here he sat, River by his side.

  Her eyes looked brown today, darkened by the baby pink of her gingham apron. They swam with concern as she took in his flushed cheeks, the shattered phone and the bloodied shards of glass in his hands.

  Cohen let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

  She held a hand up. Stay there, she was silently telling him.

  She went to the door and turned the sign to read ‘closed for lunch’. She then went to the counter and pulled out the first aid box, the same one from the first time he was here. She opened it with a sigh, digging out a pair of tweezers and motioning for him to put his injured hand into hers. He did so willingly and the simple act of trust, clean and pure and honest and good, was enough to almost make him weep.

  It had been a long time since Cohen had been able to share a burden, no matter how small, with anyone else.

  She carefully pulled the shard from his hand before rubbing an antiseptic cream into the wound. As she tended to his fractured skin, he felt himself relax, lulled into submission by her gentle ministrations. He watched her face as she applied a bandage, enthralled by how a small, delicious sliver of her tongue poked out from between her lips as she worked.

  When she finished, she looked into his eyes. Her gaze was searching, her expression sad. Cohen briefly glanced at the shattered remnants of his phone and could have died of shame.

  ‘I wish.’ His voice was slow, drawn deep from a personal well of regret, ‘I wish you could see me at my best, rather than at my worst.’ He paused, examining the bandage on his hand. ‘I wish I could make you understand. And I don’t mean hear, because I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Not even that. But I wish I could talk to you. I wish I could make you see that there is more to me than this.’ He scowled at his broken phone and battered hand. ‘That there is more to me than the stories your mother will have heard.’

  She was watching his lips carefully, but her frown let him know that she hadn’t understood. That she’d tended to his pain without knowing where it came from. That she’d seen his anger without knowing that it was drawn from internal pain.

  She hadn’t understood, and Cohen took a deep breath that was part disappointment, part resignation.

  ‘That’s okay.’ He nodded, bringing a hand to River’s face, holding her cheek while brushing his thumb over her brow. ‘Don’t worry. This is enough. You will always be enough.’

  For a time, River rested the weight of her head in Cohen’s palm, looking up at him curiously. Their eyes locked, and they spent several long moments staring at one another, not quite belonging to themselves, but also not belonging to each other.

  Abruptly, River’s eyes flashed, and with a small grin she stood, pressing a kiss against Cohen’s hand before disentangling their fingers. She pointed to the counter, bringing her right hand to her chin and making a gesture that Cohen would recognise in any language.

  Ice cream.

  When River returned, she was precariously balancing a large tub in one hand and two glass bowls in the other, on top of which she had stacked two spoons, a scoop and a ream of paper and pens.

  She dumped them in a heap on the table, immediately pulling back the lid on the tub to reveal an ice cream so dark brown it was nearly black. With her scoop she dispensed two neat balls of ice cream into the bowls, passing one to Cohen.

  She made a ‘C’ shape with her fingers again, this time under her chin, but moving her hand twice, almost as if to emphasise the motion.

  Chocolate.

  Cohen attempted to copy the gesture, growling when he made an error. But River was quick and kind, bringing her hand to his, shaping his fingers with her own and showing him how to make the sign.

  Chocolate, Cohen said with his hands.

  They celebrated by each taking a mouthful of ice cream, and Cohen sat back, half in pleasure, half in thought, as the cold mixture melted on his tongue.

  For chocolate, it was almost unbearably rich, nearly coffee-like in flavour. But beneath the strong, initial note of bitterness there was an underlying sweetness. All at once the ice cream was too much while also not being enough, and Cohen stared into his bowl, confused.

  It was then that he noticed River scribbling on a piece of paper beside him.

  Thoughts? she’d written, in a messy scrawl that would normally make the precise Cohen wince.

  But he wasn’t wincing now. In fact, he felt damn near like celebrating. For in the stack of
paper before him, he suddenly spied a window into River’s mind. In the brush of a pen on paper, he could pull back the curtains on his own.

  He smiled, taking the pen, writing a stream of letters.

  I think, if you’d let me, I could love you.

  He passed the note back to River, watching with delight as a blush crept over her cheeks when she saw what he had written.

  She bit her lip as she scribbled a reply.

  There’s no permission required to love, you know. He read that with a smile. Only when you want to do something about it. Though I did mean the ice cream. I need a name for this creation, you see. Mama and I always bring out three new flavours in time for Christmas. It’s kind of a tradition. This is one of them.

  He took the pen from her hand, jotting down a reply in his immaculate handwriting.

  Three? What are the other two?

  She glanced over his words, before giving a shrug. Taking the pen again, she scribbled something down, before turning the paper in his direction.

  I don’t know. I haven’t invented them yet. So, what do you think of this one? The first?

  He took another spoonful of ice cream, trying to gauge the flavour as he would a fine wine.

  It’s bitter, he finally wrote. Bitter chocolate.

  She frowned, trying her own bowl again. She must have agreed with him, because she nodded with a sigh, before sitting back and staring at her ice cream with a thoughtful expression. Suddenly, she touched Cohen’s fingers, before bringing her own fingers to her mouth, making a motion with them and wincing slightly.

  Bitter, Cohen realised.

  When he made the sign back, he added the motion for chocolate at the end.

  Bitter chocolate, he signed, and River smiled at him deeply.

  The chocolate might have been bitter, but there was nothing bitter at all about this moment. For this, he suddenly realised, was his first multi-word sign. River, her face bright, looked at him with such pride that he felt a dart of true happiness. In fact, there was such joy written into the silent features of her face that Cohen knew he could die happily in this moment, right here into his bowl of chocolate ice cream.