by Lindsey Kelk
‘Know anyone who needs five eight-foot Christmas trees and five hundred broken tree ornaments?’ She took a seat opposite, dropped her bag on the floor and passed me a coffee cup the size of my head.
‘I could probably take one?’ I replied. ‘Sorry.’
‘I want to say these things happen but they really don’t.’ She was trying very hard not to laugh. I couldn’t help but feel that I wouldn’t have been quite so jovial in the same situation. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Like shit.’
I didn’t believe in lying to Delia.
‘Well, you look great.’
She, however, had no concerns about lying to me.
‘I can go if you’re still putting the pages to bed …’ She started to stand up again but with my face full of Styrofoam cup I waved her back into her seat and tried to shake my head, but trying to do three things at once was two things too many.
‘No, no,’ I replied, wiping my coffee spill from the desk. ‘It’s all done. Just sent it through to Jesse for his final sign-off.’
‘Wow.’ Delia delicately sipped her coffee. ‘What I’m hearing is that you managed to send an entire magazine to print, despite technical difficulties, despite having to work without your managing editor for half of the day, despite having to work with my sister and you still found time to step out and terrorise Manhattan’s biggest department store?’
I stared at her blankly, still slurping my bucket of coffee.
‘You sound like you think that is some sort of achievement?’
‘You don’t think it is?’ she asked. ‘Angela, I’ve seen teams here at ten, eleven at night trying to get pages approved and I’m pretty sure none of them brought the Radio City Christmas Spectacular to a standstill in their lunch break. I just wish you’d trust yourself a little more.’
‘I do trust myself,’ I said, one eye on the door, waiting for Jesse to come in and beat me to death for missing a dirty typo. ‘I just don’t trust anyone else.’
‘Hardly ideal,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have a heart attack if you don’t relax a little. The team here is great. You’re great.’
‘I don’t want to let you and Mary down,’ I said, a familiar feeling of panic washing over me again. ‘I know I’m only looking after things for three months but I don’t want to mess up. Mary never gets stressed like I do. Mary never freaks out. Mary is amazing.’
‘Mary gets plenty stressed,’ Delia said, trying to reassure me. Which might have been easier if she hadn’t just given me eighteen Red Bulls’ worth of caffeine. ‘But Mary doesn’t show it. You’re just as good as she is, you just don’t know it yet. Or you don’t want to believe it anyway.’
‘I’m English,’ I explained with a pout. ‘We don’t believe in self-congratulation. Just resentment, bitterness and crippling self-doubt.’
‘Well, I’m here to tell you you’re great. I took a look at some of the pages on my way in and the magazine looks wonderful.’
I wanted to believe her but this was the same woman who had just sat in front of me and told me I looked good.
‘The only person standing in your way right now is you.’ Delia’s words of wisdom settled squarely on my shoulders. I sighed and tried very hard to believe them. ‘No one expects you to be Mary, they just want you to be you. You’re going to do just fine.’
‘Even if I could manage the magazine stuff, I’m a shit boss,’ I said, clicking a fingernail against the platinum band of my engagement ring. ‘I don’t know how to manage people properly. I’m too nice.’
‘Good job you’ve got Cici to practise on, isn’t it?’ she replied with a smile. ‘I don’t think you’ll be too concerned about being overly friendly with her.’
‘True,’ I admitted. ‘And I know I might have overreacted a little bit but really, can you blame me?’
‘She did steal my cat and give it to a girl in our class when we were kids,’ Delia admitted. ‘But I do think child trafficking is a little beyond her.’
I raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
‘I said a little. And you, Angela Clark, need to start having a little faith in yourself.’ Delia picked her handbag up from the floor and stood up to leave. ‘Go home, give that handsome husband of yours a kiss and have a very happy Christmas.’
‘Actually, I haven’t heard from that handsome husband all day.’ I scrabbled around in the bottom of my bag, looking for my phone. No missed calls, no text messages, no recent tweets from any of the Kardashians. ‘And he was gone when I got up this morning.’
I looked up at Delia, immediately alarmed. ‘Oh my God, he’s left me. He’s run away before my mum arrives. What if he’s taken his passport?’
‘This is the same thought process that had you believing Cici was crossing the border to Mexico with your goddaughter, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘I have a very active imagination,’ I responded. ‘It has not served me well in life.’
‘You’ve done a great job today, Angela. Now go home. Relax.’ She pulled her bag onto her shoulder and dropped her empty coffee cup into my rubbish bin. ‘Then come back Thursday and do it all over again.’
‘All of it?’
‘Maybe try to stay out of Macy’s?’ she suggested. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Thirty minutes after Delia left the office, Jesse, Megan and I signed off the final pages of the magazine, sending it to print with a group high five and an awful lot of swear words. I was happy, somewhere inside, but any particularly positive feelings were being choked to death by relief and exhaustion. The rest of the team had already gone, sent off with a hug and a bag of chocolate coins. No one seemed quite as excited about them as I was but that was probably because half of the team didn’t eat refined sugar.
‘That’s it,’ Jesse announced, switching off his monitor. ‘It’s done. We’re good to go.’
‘You must be super excited to see your folks,’ Megan said, grabbing her purse from her desk. ‘I know you’re super psyched about the holidays.’
‘Was super psyched,’ I corrected her. ‘I mostly just want to sleep until Thursday. Fingers crossed there’s some Ambien in my stocking tomorrow morning.’
‘I do love a sedative but maybe don’t knock yourself out just yet.’ It seemed that we hadn’t quite cleared out the office. Cici appeared from a dark little corner, holding an envelope. She handed it over, yawning. ‘This just came for you.’
I had assumed she’d snuck out hours ago and sort of hoped she might not come back. But there she was, still in her sweater and skirt, still in her torture shoes. Her hair had lost some of its bounce and her make-up had faded dramatically – smudges of eyeliner were caught in the creases under her eyes and her nose was, God forbid, shiny.
‘You’re still here?’ I took the envelope, trying to remember how to check for evidence of ricin while keeping an eye on my assistant.
‘I don’t leave until you leave,’ she shrugged. ‘When I worked for Mary, I’d be here all night sometimes. It’s part of the job.’
‘You’re actually going to do this?’ I asked, tearing open the letter. The address was handwritten but all in block capitals so I couldn’t recognise the handwriting. ‘The job, I mean?’
‘I don’t really know how to do anything else just yet,’ she said, glancing over at Jesse and Megan, who both backed away and busied themselves at their desks as soon as they realised she’d clocked them. ‘Grandpa got me the job as Mary’s assistant because of their, you know, connection. And when I stopped working for her, I was so incredibly bored. I don’t want to volunteer on committees or museum boards for the rest of my life. And Grandpa seems to think it’s not cool for me to spend the next five years on vacation, so I figure I’d be better off doing something I’m interested in.’
‘Ruining my life?’ I suggested.
‘Working in fashion,’ she corrected. ‘I thought about getting an internship with a designer or going into PR maybe—’
‘Ooh, you should totally do that.’
&nbs
p; ‘But I want to work for the family company.’ She finished her sentence loudly. ‘And sure, we haven’t always seen eye to eye but I think maybe there’s something I might be able to learn from you.’
‘How to eat carbs?’ I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
‘How to be good at this.’ She waved her hand around the office. ‘You came in here three years ago without experience and now you’re the editor.’
‘Interim editor,’ I corrected. I couldn’t work out what I was feeling. Alongside the confusion and disbelief, there was a tiny, warm glowing feeling in the pit of my stomach. Was that … was that pride?
‘Whatever,’ Cici sighed. ‘Delia is just great at this stuff. She’s a natural, I’m not. I want to learn how to be good at something.’
‘Well, you haven’t always used your powers for good,’ I pointed out. ‘But I have always been quite impressed at how well you’ve managed the logistics of fucking things up for me. It would be great if you could not refer to other girls on the magazine as whores, though.’
‘I am good at organising things,’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘And I never miss the details. It’s always about the details.’
‘You do seem to think of everything,’ I agreed.
‘And I really, really don’t want Grandpa to cut off my trust.’ She lowered her voice, eyes on Megan and Jesse, as though they didn’t already know she was worth millions and might decide to use this information against her somehow. ‘I would not be good at being poor. It looks hard.’
It was only when she reached out and patted my shoulder, I realised what she meant.
‘Yeah,’ I said, sucking in my breath. ‘It’s not easy.’
‘I’m sorry I took Grace without telling you.’ Cici paused for a moment, seemingly shocked by her own apology.
But that wasn’t nearly as shocking as her next move. She awkwardly raised both of her arms, leaned towards me and wrapped them around my shoulders in a tight, rigid hug. I flinched as they tightened around my back. I flinched and assumed she was just looking for the right spot to stick the knife. But the stabbing never came. It was just a hug. Part of me was a little bit disappointed.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, patting her back and waiting for it to be over. ‘I overreacted.’
She broke off the hug, stood upright again and breathed, her tired face lighting up with a smile that was almost as warm as Delia’s. It was a strange sight to see.
‘What does your letter say?’ she asked, our moment seemingly over.
‘Um,’ I unfolded the thick, creamy paper and read out the message. ‘340 Bleecker Street, 6.00 p.m.’
‘You only have half an hour,’ she said, glancing at her Cartier Tank watch. ‘And that’s way down in the village. Let me call you a car.’
‘Thanks, Cici,’ I said, the words thick and uncomfortable on my tongue. ‘I’ll get my bag.’
‘It’s what I’m here for,’ she sang, picking up her phone.
I waved awkwardly at the remaining team as I jabbed the button for the lift. Cici gave a sparkling little smile and waved.
‘Yes, I mean now. She’s in the elevator. There had better be a car waiting when she gets down there,’ she barked at some poor person in the parking garage. ‘I don’t care if it’s the holidays, find a goddamn driver.’
As the lift doors opened, I stepped inside, strangely reassured that she hadn’t undergone a complete personality switch. The hug was quite enough for one day. If we could crack ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ by Easter, I’d be ecstatic.
I was so busy apologising for Cici’s behaviour, all the way from Times Square to the West Village, that I didn’t realise where we were when the driver pulled over and announced that we had arrived. Stepping out into the snowy street, I pulled my coat tightly around myself and slung the long strap of my satchel over my head. I was at Manatus, the restaurant where I had first met Alex three and a half years earlier. Asking the driver to wait, I pushed open the wood and glass door, letting a gust of freezing cold air announce my arrival. The people sitting in the booths closest to the windows shivered and involuntarily turned towards the door, shaking their heads and sipping their wine. I made an apologetic face and looked around, waiting to recognise someone. But there was no one. No one I knew at least. I took the letter out of my pocket and read it for the millionth time. This was definitely the spot and this was definitely the time.
It was strange being here again. Erin had suggested it, way back when. I’d walked past a few times since – it was very close to Marc Jacobs – but I’d never been back inside. I looked over at the table where we’d eaten breakfast, gossiped about boys. Where she’d offered to introduce me to Mary and had started my whole adventure. And there in the back was the tiny table for one where Alex had been sat, drinking his coffee and pretending to listen to his iPod when really he’d been eavesdropping on our conversation the whole time. He’s never told me what he was doing way over here in the West Village on his own on a random weekday morning. I could only imagine that meant I didn’t want to know. He had been such a boy whore pre-me.
‘Are you Angela?’ A small, red-headed Greek lady tapped me on the arm and looked at me through her wire-rimmed glasses. ‘You’re the lady?’
‘I’m Angela,’ I said, taking the small, gold box that she thrust into my hands. ‘I’m not sure if I’m the lady. Or a lady to be honest.’
‘Man said to give you box and letter,’ she shrugged. ‘You want table?’
‘No, thank you.’ I tore into the second envelope, identical to the first. Inside was another piece of paper with another address. ‘Is the man still here?’
‘He left,’ she said, pointing at the door. ‘He gives me box, he buys a coffee, he leaves a big tip, he says you will be here around six thirty. He says you might be late.’
I smiled to myself, developing an inkling as to who the man might be.
‘Thank you,’ I said, folding the second letter back up and putting it back into its envelope. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘And happy New Year,’ the woman replied automatically.
I tapped on the driver’s window with what I hoped was a face he would take pity on. As soon as he rolled it down, I realised he was not a man to take pity on anyone. But he was a man who was scared of Cici and I wasn’t above taking advantage of that.
‘Where to?’ he asked, unlocking the passenger door.
‘Broadway, between 13th and 14th,’ I said, hopping in and ripping the gold wrapping paper off the box. ‘I need to be there by six fifty.’
‘Traffic is heavy,’ he replied as he pulled away from the kerb. ‘I’ll get you there as soon as I can.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said, marvelling at the brand new iPhone in my lap. There was a small Post-it note on the front with the words ‘play me’ written in marker pen. ‘He’s expecting me to be late.’
There was only one song loaded onto the phone. It started with a guitar and some sleigh bells and then there was a voice I recognised.
‘Dude, this is so gay.’
It was Craig. Presumably on bell duty.
‘Shut up.’ Alex’s voice streamed into my ears and into my heart, washing away all the rest of the day’s stresses. I laughed lightly and pressed the earbuds in tighter. I didn’t want to miss a second of whatever he had to say. ‘So, this is one of your presents, Angela. Merry Christmas.’
As he started to sing a heartfelt acoustic rendition of ‘All I Want For Christmas’, I felt the first tear slide down my cheek. I wiped my tired, gritty eyes once and then let the tears fall. All that was missing was my recorder solo.
The traffic was bad on the way back up to Union Square but I didn’t mind. This time I knew where we were headed and, after all, I had my song to listen to and a new iPhone to stroke. When we finally stopped outside Max Brenner, I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. I’d done some light repair work to my make-up but my eyes were still red and my lips were still chapped. I had a feeling that it didn’t matter.
‘Hi, I’m Angela.’ I approached the hostess with the same ‘please don’t think I’m mad’ look that I’d given the driver. ‘I think you might have a package or something for me?’
‘Angela Clark?’ she asked, running a finger down a list of names in front of her. I nodded as though my head might fall off. ‘I don’t have a package but the rest of your party is already seated. This way.’
The rest of my party?
I followed the waitress through the busy tables, dodging children who had consumed more sugar than I had caffeine and trying to inhale the chocolatey goodness all around. It was only when we went up a set of stairs I hadn’t noticed before that I spotted the rest of my party.
It was only my bloody parents.
‘You’re late,’ Mum said, refusing to stand up. Or make eye contact. Or smile. ‘And you look a right state.’
‘Merry Christmas, love.’ Dad put down his cup of tea and opened his arms for a hug. Still in shock, it took me a moment to realise they were really there. I threw myself at my dad, almost knocking him into the wall, squeezing him as hard as I could. Not fancy holograms, not muggers in elaborate fancy dress, they actually were my mum and dad.
‘You’re here,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘I’m so happy.’
And I was. The second I had laid eyes on my miserable-looking mother, it really began to feel like Christmas.
‘We’re here,’ she replied, her lips still a thin tight line as I wrapped my arms around her neck and gave her a hug of her own, whether she liked it or not.
‘Alex called,’ Dad explained while I breathed in my mum’s perfume. Eventually she relaxed and patted me on the back. It was as good as I was going to get for the time being. ‘He explained you’ve been under a bit of pressure.’