One New York Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she answered. ‘All of that and the guy who sold me the tree delivered the tree and helped me carry it up all the steps, and in here, while you two lay sleeping … well, you know, not sleeping exactly but …’

  ‘It’s a great tree,’ David remarked, stepping up to the pine bush and fondling a finger of needles. ‘It smells real good.’

  ‘And you two are talking, and doing other things with your mouths again, so it’s all fine with you, right?’ Lara said, watching the bare boards turn a little more rustic as needles hit the floor and certain boughs didn’t do as they were told.

  ‘It’s all bueno,’ David replied.

  ‘It’s the day, isn’t it?’ Susie remarked. ‘The day you always put your tree up in the barnpartment.’

  Her best friend had got it. She had tried hard not to dwell on all the Christmas preparation she usually did in Appleshaw while she was here but, after last night, after Seth had dropped her home and she had left him without a kiss or even a promise to call, she needed a distraction … and the Christmas tree was it.

  ‘I have to go,’ David said, leaping at Susie and winding around her like he was taking part in a hot scene from an adult movie. ‘I will see you later.’

  ‘You will,’ Susie said, kissing him tenderly.

  ‘Bye, Lara!’ David said … and then he was gone.

  ‘Right,’ Lara said, getting to her feet and wiping pine needles from her fingers. ‘Now he’s gone I can run through our itinerary for the day.’

  ‘Our what?’ Susie asked.

  ‘Our plan. You know, sightseeing, shopping, lots of shopping, coffee, bagels because we can’t come to New York and only go to one bagel place—’

  ‘Aren’t you seeing Seth today?’

  ‘No, not today,’ Lara answered, picking a string of blue tinsel out of the bag of delights she had purchased earlier.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Is he working?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Lara, what’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. Last night I sent you out of here looking like a beauty queen ready to storm the red carpet, I get you had an unplanned trip to the hospital but now you’re not going to see Seth? What’s happened?’

  Lara sighed. ‘The messages he sent me on Twitter. They weren’t from him. They were from Trent.’

  Susie laughed. ‘Is that it? You did keep saying that celebrities have social-media managers. You were right.’

  ‘I know, but, it’s not right, is it? I thought I was talking to him once we started properly talking. I assumed everything I was saying I was saying to him, not his agent friend.’

  ‘So, what, you’re not going to see him again now?’ Susie asked. ‘You’re going to end things? Even though you’ve been practically inseparable since the day we got here, and I’ve never seen you happier?’

  ‘It’s for the best.’

  ‘The best for who?’

  ‘It’s too soon,’ Lara stated, dipping to pick up a silvery star. She hung it in the middle of the tree then changed her mind and put it somewhere else.

  ‘Too soon for what?’

  ‘To … fall in love with someone.’

  ‘You’re in love with Seth.’

  Susie looked like she might want to start flossing with excitement. Lara hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. Because they were ludicrous.

  ‘But enough of that,’ Lara said, changing the subject. ‘We have a fun-packed day ahead of us, just as soon as we’ve decorated this tree.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Susie said, stepping closer to her. ‘I’m not letting you drop that sentence and emotionally backtrack on me.’

  ‘It’s hopeless,’ Lara insisted. ‘We’re from two different worlds.’

  ‘That sounds like the beginning of a film trailer.’ Susie cleared her throat and started husky. ‘They were from two different worlds but when they met, life and love just seemed to fall into place.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Lara said, unable not to laugh. Her arm hurt a bit when she laughed, and when she used her left hand.

  ‘I won’t,’ Susie said. ‘I won’t stop making up trailers until you fix another date with Seth. I know you think it’s too soon but that kind of depends what you’re looking for. You make the rules now.’ She was looking at her seriously. ‘So, Lara, do you think it’s too soon to meet a gorgeous guy and have the time of your life?’

  Sixty-Four

  The Chapel Shelter, W 40th Street

  ‘Lara is totally bad-ass,’ Felice remarked as she and Seth packed food boxes that were going in the back of a van Ted was taking out into the city to some of the homeless camps and squats. It was something they did once a month and twice a few weeks before Christmas. Christmas wasn’t always full of festive cheer for everyone. Some needed help to make it even halfway close to special.

  ‘I mean she gets in between Earl and that shelter-crasher …’ Felice carried on.

  ‘He was a reporter. The police suggested he writes up what he has and doesn’t go undercover like that again.’

  ‘Undercover or not, he’s still been taking our food,’ Felice said. Seth saw her slip some sachets of coffee into the pocket of her coat. ‘But, Lara, she’s like some sort of superhero. Always doing good stuff, you know.’

  Yeah, he did know. He had thought about it all night while watching the video footage from the red carpet. There he and Lara were, holding hands, smiling, looking happy and then he could see things change, the second they started to talk about Trent’s use of his social media …

  ‘Put the coffee back, Felice,’ he said to her.

  ‘What?’ Felice asked, all innocence.

  ‘Listen, I know you’ve got nothing, but I also know my mom thinks you’re one of the best ones, that you’re gonna make something of yourself. She gives you privileges, swings the bed raffle most nights, don’t let her down.’ He looked up. ‘Do it now. My dad’s coming.’

  Felice slipped the coffee packets back into the box and recommenced filling the parcels with goods.

  ‘How’s it going you guys?’ Ted asked, joining them.

  ‘Good,’ Seth answered. ‘We’ve got a pile of almost fifty by the door already and we’re almost done with these.’

  ‘Fantastic work,’ Ted said. ‘You too, Felice.’

  Seth watched her blush then shrug.

  ‘Dad, have you got a second?’

  ‘Sure, Seth.’

  ‘Felice, are you good here?’ Seth asked.

  ‘One thing of each thing goes in each box.’ She tutted. ‘I don’t think I need my graduation certificate to manage that.’

  Seth led the way to the corner of the main room, just behind the ping pong table where two women – both with strings of tinsel around their heads like sweatbands – were playing what looked like a hotly contested game.

  ‘Do you wanna sit?’ Ted asked, indicating the chairs.

  ‘No,’ Seth said. ‘I … just wanna ask you something.’

  ‘As a father? Or as a counsellor?’ He smiled. ‘Or as my twenty-eight-year-old self?’

  ‘Maybe a little of all three?’

  ‘OK,’ Ted responded.

  ‘OK,’ Seth said. Why was he so nervous? He felt like one of his dad’s high-school students about to confess to smoking weed. ‘So, I just want to know what you think about … about love.’

  ‘Love.’ Ted said the word like it was poetic. And he’d made the four letters sound a whole lot longer and more meaningful than Seth had. ‘What do I think about love?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, odd question.’

  ‘Well, I believe in it. Wholly and completely. And I believe it takes many forms. It’s also absolutely different to any other form of emotion I’ve read about or encountered.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘So, let’s take hate. Love’s opposite. Hate can grow, over a long period of t
ime and it can be fast too, but hate usually stems from an incident or a chain of events that led the person to feel that dark emotion. Often hate is misunderstood. When we say we hate somebody, what we really mean is we hate certain things that person has done.’ He smiled. ‘And we have to remember that those things only make up a tiny part of that person and that person might have been acting that way or doing those things for a whole set of reasons we have no knowledge of. Believe it or not, it’s actually really hard to truly hate a person.’

  ‘And love?’ Seth asked.

  ‘Love is more complicated than hate. Love can grow too, but love can also be instant, like a mother’s love, the moment their child is born … is this about Candice?’ Ted enquired.

  Seth shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘OK … so love, it’s instinctive and knowledgeable and love is felt by the entire body – honestly, even the tips of your toes respond to love – and the love emotion really does almost neutralise every other feeling.’

  ‘But, how do you know if it’s right? I mean, right place, wrong time, wrong place, right time …’ He trailed off not knowing what to say next.

  ‘I think you’re talking about true love now, Seth,’ Ted said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Seth responded. ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘I think you do know,’ Ted said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Or you wouldn’t be here asking me about it.’ He smiled. ‘Remember, we don’t always choose love, Seth. Sometimes love chooses us.’

  Seth nodded, feeling like he had enough of the answers he needed. ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yes, son?’

  ‘Is there any way you can get me a really cool truck by tonight?’

  Sixty-Five

  Madison Avenue

  ‘What store is next?’ Lara asked enthusiastically. ‘I know, how about Ralph Lauren? You ought to be able to pick up something nice for David for Christmas in there, right?’

  ‘OK, this has to stop now,’ Susie said, halting in the middle of the pavement so people had to walk around her. ‘At first, I thought this might work to my advantage, having you finally interested in shopping. But it’s like a shell of you! You don’t give real opinions! You say you like everything! And, believe me, I have held up and admired the biggest pieces of shit this city has to offer over the past couple of hours.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lara said with a sigh. ‘You noticed. I thought I was doing so well.’

  ‘No,’ Susie said. ‘You are not doing well. And you are not doing well because you are sad about not seeing Seth. I know your arm is injured, but right now, you’re acting like it’s been severed off. Like a part of you is gone. You were not like this after Dan. You were sad, yes, but you were angry and disappointed more. Now it’s like the sun has been kidnapped and Jesus has cancelled Christmas forever.’

  ‘I definitely wasn’t doing so well then.’

  ‘I don’t care what you say,’ Susie shouted, passers-by listening, the busker stopping his rendition of ‘Driving Home for Christmas’. ‘I don’t care if you’ve known him a week or a lifetime. You love him! You need to tell him you love him! It doesn’t mean you have to live together or even be together, or get married, or get pregnant, just meet up with him again. Tell him you love him!’

  The busker clapped his hands in applause and whistled and Lara felt something burst inside her … and it wasn’t the stitches in her arm. Was it really that simple? Did it really not matter than Seth had arrived in her life at the most inconvenient of times, that she had been flung into this relationship at breakneck speed straight after the loss of a man she had wasted too much time on? Surely, if she wanted to, she could be with Seth and still maintain that spirit of adventure he’d helped her to find while she had been here. Maybe it didn’t have to be a case of one thing or the other …

  From the pocket of her jacket her phone made a noise and she slipped it out to look.

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it! You’re so in sync with each other you just have to think about him and he’s on the other end of the phone!’ Susie exclaimed.

  ‘Kind of,’ Lara answered. ‘It’s Trent.’

  ‘Ugh. What does he want?’

  She began to read the message.

  Hi Lara, so, just so we’re clear. This is TRENT. Sending probably my last ever communication as Seth Hunt Actor. Lara, I wanted to say I’m sorry for the confusion. Yes, at first, I thought you were a great angle with your bleeding heart and celebrity bent to try and get over your break-up but … Seth had nothing to do with that and, if you know the guy as well as I think you do, you’ll know that too. Now for the part that, as a best friend, I definitely should not be telling you because it breaks down the whole bro-code thing, but, as crazy as I think this all is, Seth’s in love with you. I mean, I seriously don’t think he will eat or sleep or even drink beer if you break his heart here. He’s totally sweet on you. Gone. *makes plane noise* Head over heels. Almost-had-me-in-a-headlock-Beyoncé-Crazy-in-Love crazy in love with you. So please, I’m begging you, call him, go out with him, please God sleep with him, because I have to live with him and I am a far worse heartbreak healer than I was an agent. TRENT

  ‘Not just a three-word message then,’ Susie remarked.

  ‘I need to call him,’ Lara stated, her fingers now appearing to work properly. ‘I need to call Seth.’

  Sixty-Six

  Lara and Susie’s Airbnb apartment, East Village

  ‘Wait!’ Seth greeted, grabbing hold of the door handle. ‘Don’t open the door yet.’

  ‘Why not?’ Lara asked, wrestling for ownership of the pull.

  ‘Please, I promise, you’ll like it. Just close your eyes.’

  ‘So, I can’t open the door and now I have to close my eyes?’

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Seth begged.

  Lara took a breath and did as he asked. This felt better. She was wearing jeans, a Fall Out Boy jumper over her Truckfest T-shirt and they weren’t on their way to something cinematic, she hoped. She hadn’t said anything to Seth about Trent’s message. Hearing that Seth loved her had turned her into a gooey mess on Madison Avenue, but she really wanted to hear it from Seth himself before she admitted how she felt to him. It was all unchartered territory for her. This kind of love she hadn’t known existed.

  ‘OK,’ Seth said, taking her hand. ‘Take the steps real slow. I don’t want you falling on the snow and splitting your stitches.’

  ‘I have four stitches. Not a back full of them like I did when I got stuck in barbed wire with a peacock.’

  ‘Last couple of steps,’ Seth directed as they moved down. ‘OK.’ Her feet landed on the sidewalk. ‘Open your eyes.’

  Lara snapped open her eyes and her jaw dropped. Inside she was screaming but outwardly she was so stunned she couldn’t make a single sound.

  ‘It’s a … it’s a …’

  ‘You probably know all the names and numbers of it. I just call it a truck.’

  ‘Is this our transport?’ Lara asked. ‘To the date.’

  ‘Lemur Girl, this is our date.’

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ Lara said, going up to the truck and touching its bright blue paintwork and chrome fixtures like she was caressing a horse. She knew exactly what it was. It was a Western Star and, as much as she loved Tina, this truck was something else. ‘Wait, did you drive this here?’

  ‘No!’ Seth said, holding his hands up and looking a little bit scared. ‘My dad made me promise I would not even start the engine. His pal, Stan, works somewhere like you work, and he dropped me and her … is it a her?’ Seth asked, looking at the vehicle as if he might be able to tell.

  Lara laughed. ‘This is a boy.’

  ‘Why? Because he’s painted blue? That’s a little bit judge-y.’

  ‘No,’ Lara answered. ‘I just know. Don’t I … Austin.’

  ‘Wow, you’ve named him already,’ Seth stated. ‘And given him the gayest truck name I have ever heard.’

  ‘Because that’s not judge-y at all,’ Lara answered. She stoppe
d running her hand along the truck’s paintwork and looked at Seth. ‘Can I drive him?’

  ‘Well,’ Seth began. ‘I assured Stan … and my dad … that you really do do this for a job and …’

  ‘I do,’ Lara said excitedly. ‘So, can we go?’ She was already pulling at the handle but then she stopped.

  ‘What’s up?’ Seth asked. ‘We can go. I’m excited to go.’

  ‘I might need some help getting up,’ Lara admitted. ‘Because of my arm.’

  ‘God, yeah, I’m sorry, sure.’ He opened the door for her. ‘Listen, I saw Earl earlier. He couldn’t be sorrier.’

  ‘I know,’ Lara said. ‘It wasn’t really his fault.’

  ‘Well, he was holding the spork,’ Seth reminded.

  ‘And when I tell the story at parties I am definitely going to say it was a screwdriver because a spork just sounds so pathetic.’

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t a screwdriver,’ Seth stated. He was looking at her now, like he didn’t know what came next.

  ‘Just, give my bum a boost,’ Lara said, putting one hand on the rail and her foot on the first step.

  ‘OK,’ Seth said, still sounding unsure.

  ‘Come on, Seth, this is a valid invitation to touch my arse. Get on with it!’

  She felt him hold her bottom, then push and with a bit of a scramble she was up and settling herself into the driver’s seat. It was amazing. She felt so at home, but it was also quite different from being in the familiarity of Tina. There was the longest gear stick in the world for a start and the whole sitting on the other side of the cab …

  ‘It’s so high up here, isn’t it?’ Seth remarked. ‘I thought that, when I got up earlier, you know, after the fourth attempt, without my dad boosting my butt, how high it is and how you can see everything so much better.’

  ‘Where should I take us?’ Lara asked. She started the engine and closed her eyes as she pressed down on the accelerator and listened to the roar of the moving parts.

  ‘Let’s get out of the centre,’ Seth suggested. ‘And go over some bridges.’