“Thomas will cheer him right up,” I said. “He’s great at that kind of thing. I don’t think I could have dealt with the homesickness all this time without him.”
She patted my hand kindly. “Now. Thomas tells me you had an editor interested in your book. Tell me everything.”
That was one of the things I loved about Anne—she was so fully supportive. She had begged me to read my manuscript as soon as I first admitted to her that I was writing. When I sent it to her, she finished it in two days and responded with a two-page letter full of notes. Things she had loved about it and things she thought I could work on. It had blown me away that she’d taken the time to do all that. Most people I had told about the book had congratulated me and asked to read it, but I knew they were just being polite. Not Anne. If I wanted to be a writer, she was going to help me do that. The same way she had helped Thomas prepare for his auditions and her other children with their school work. She was an amazing mother.
After I filled her in on Ellen’s critique, conveniently leaving out the part about the fight Thomas and I had had over it, we moved on to general book discussion. We shared many of the same tastes in literature, though she had a propensity for mysteries that I had never shared.
“You’ve never read Georgette Heyer?” she asked, stopping in the act of rolling out dough to stare at me. “Are you serious?”
I shrugged. “She never caught my eye.”
“That is absurd, Lizzie. You love Jane Austen. You love Regency books. You must read Georgette Heyer. You must.”
I laughed. “Okay. She will be my next read. I promise.”
“Blimey, Lizzie, she scolds you almost as bad as she scolds her own kids.” I looked up to see Bryony leaning against the doorway, mid-eye-roll in her mother’s direction.
“Bryony!” I cried. “When’d you get here?”
“Just now.” She grinned at me and blew me a kiss. “I’d hug you hello, but you’re all covered in flour.”
“Come and kiss your mother,” Anne said sternly, pointing at her cheek. “I haven’t seen you in three weeks.”
Bryony did as she was told, smacking a loud kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Happy Christmas, Mum.”
“Happy Christmas, dear.”
To my surprise, Bryony came over and kissed me as well. She moaned. “You’re so tan, Lizzie. I’m beyond jealous.”
“I have been spending my fair share of time on the beach,” I said in mock-unconcerned tones. She stuck out her tongue at me, and I laughed.
“So tell me all about it!”
“Come and help us and you girls can gossip about California all you want.”
Bryony grumbled as she went to the peg by the door for an apron. “I just bloody got here.”
“Language.” Anne smacked her arm as she passed. “Besides, Lizzie arrived on a transatlantic flight this morning and she volunteered to help.”
Bryony made a face at me. “When you and Tommy get married you are so going to be the favorite.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. It was one thing to casually talk our way around marriage when it was just Thomas and me. But for his kid sister to bring it up—in front of their mother, no less—was downright embarrassing.
“Oh, don’t give me that blushing nonsense,” she said. “He’s obviously going to ask you soon. Do you think it will be tomorrow?”
“Bryony,” her mother said, a warning note in her voice. “Don’t embarrass her.”
“Come on, Mum. He’s crazy about her. She’s crazy about him. He leaves her here with his mother to bake cookies all day. Don’t tell me a proposal isn’t imminent.”
I was going to kill Bryony. Her eyes were all twinkly with laughter, as if she knew exactly how uncomfortable she was making me and enjoyed it.
“Stop pestering her,” Anne insisted. But she shot me a smile. “Not that we wouldn’t be thrilled if that did happen, dear.”
“Thrilled is the understatement of the year, Lizzie,” Bryony said. “They would finally have the daughter they always wanted. Not someone like me who disappoints them at every turn.” Her face darkened. “Or that horrible cow, Mary.”
So she did know about her brother. I was wondering how Anne was going to share that news without breaking down again. Maybe they had called her when they first found out, to give her fair warning in case Paul was here later.
Anne’s face had hardened at her daughter’s words, so I stuck my tongue out at Bryony. “You better be nice to me, miss, or I might rethink your present. And you really wouldn’t want that.”
“Ooh, what’d ya get me?”
“I’m about to give you an empty box if you’re not careful.”
She batted her eyelashes at me. “I’m so terribly sorry for my rudeness, Lizzie, dear. I promise I will never again mention my honest belief that my brother would be nuts not to snap you up as soon as humanly possible.”
I nodded seriously. “Now that is exactly the kind of thing you should be saying to me.”
“Stop it, girls,” Anne said, though she was chuckling a little. “These cookies aren’t going to make themselves.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, baking various delicious-smelling treats. Anne and Bryony both wanted to hear all about Los Angeles, and I was happy that I had let Imogen convince me to do so many sightseeing things during our time off. Having never traveled to the States, let alone the West Coast, they were interested in everything.
It was almost like being home with my sisters and cousins, the way the three of us could talk and laugh easily. The biggest difference, of course, was the lowered noise level. And the lack of Spanish. And the fact that after a half hour or so, Gilbert came to join us. That would have never happened in my mother’s kitchen.
“Daddy is a master scone maker,” Bryony told me.
“It’s true, Lizzie,” he said. “You’ll be thanking me tomorrow when you have one with your coffee.”
Paul did end up coming back to the house with Thomas after a few hours. I had a feeling the brothers had spent a good portion of that time at a local pub. Thomas was staggering slightly when they showed up before dinner, and Paul was downright trashed.
“Did you have to get him drunk, dear?” Anne whispered to Thomas as she watched Paul stumble his way over to an armchair.
“It was the best I could do, Mum,” Thomas said.
I could tell he was trying his best not to appear drunk himself in front of his mother. His words were just a shade too careful, his posture not quite natural. It made me want to giggle.
“He didn’t want to leave the house. He wouldn’t even get dressed. But he perked up when I mentioned the pub. I figured it would at least get him out of the house.”
She patted his chest. “You’re right. You’re a good boy. Thank you for bringing him home.”
“Nose problem, Mum,” he said. “I mean, uh, no problem. Of course. Ha ha.”
She was focused too intently on Paul to notice his slurring, but I couldn’t keep in my giggles anymore. He looked at me over her head and scowled.
“I’ll make him a sandwich,” Anne murmured, nodding to herself. “Some good food might help.”
Once she had turned for the kitchen, Thomas pulled me into his arms. “Thought that was funny, eh?”
“You trying not to let your mom see how shit-faced you are? Yes. I thought that was very funny.”
He tugged on my elbow until we were out of the kitchen and down at the empty end of the hallway. “I thought I’d get a hero’s welcome, bringing the prodigal son back home and all. Instead I find my girl laughing at me.”
“Prodigal son. Yeah, right. Paul golfs with your dad twice a week.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to come home today.”
I leaned up to kiss him. “I think it’s very sweet you got your brother hammered enough to come home for Christmas Eve.”
He kissed me back, his lips and mouth more eager than was usual for him in his parents’ house. I decided I might ju
st like Thomas tipsy.
“Someone might come down here,” I murmured, trying to pull back, but he responded by pushing me up against the back wall.
“Too bad,” he mumbled between kisses. “I missed you.”
“You, sir, are drunk.” I laughed as his lips trailed down my neck. “Thomas, come on.”
He finally pulled back, his face still flushed from the cold outside, his hair rumpled and wind swept, a big, boyish grin on his face.
“Why’d we have to come back here, anyhow? We should have stayed at home with that big, ridiculous house all to ourselves. I could have ravished you in the kitchen, and your office, and the guest rooms, and the deck.”
I laughed and smacked his chest, finally succeeding in getting him to let go. “I will have to make note of the fact that you’re a horn dog when you’re drunk. This might come in handy later.”
“Baby, I’m always a horn dog for you.”
I snorted. “Dear, God, Thomas, the romance. It’s too much. You’ll make me go all a flutter.”
He laughed and smacked my bum.
“You better watch it, mister.”
“Oh, God,” Bryony said, peering down the hall at us from the entrance to the kitchen. “You guys are disgusting. Get a room.”
Thomas only laughed.
“See?” I hissed, once her head had disappeared back through the doorway. “Your family is here.”
“My family knows I’m crazy about you.”
“That doesn’t mean I want them to see you with your hands on my ass.” I looked up at him, and touched his face softly. “Seriously, Thomas. Your brother doesn’t need to see us all lovey-dovey right now, okay?”
He seemed to sober up a bit. “You’re right.” He took my hand. “Let’s go see if Mum needs help with those sandwiches. Food might just sober me up, too.”
Thomas’s aunt and uncle came over in the late afternoon. We drank brandy-laced hot chocolate in front of the fire and told them all about L.A. I was starting to feel like I was on auto-repeat, and wondered how many more times we would tell the same stories over the next few days. I also realized, the more we talked, that Thomas and I had very few L.A. stories that involved both of us. With the exception of a few nights out, either alone or with movie people, and our day at Griffith Park, we hadn’t really done a lot of L.A. stuff together. Most of my sightseeing had been with Imogen, not Thomas. And most of his time had been spent working. It made me sad, for some reason. That everyone thought we were off on this big adventure together and in actuality, we were spending most of our time apart. The time we were together was pretty much always in the house in Malibu. It wasn’t like there was a lot we could do about it. Thomas was working crazy hours. When he got home we mostly wanted to enjoy each other in the privacy of our own home. I realized, with a jolt, that our hours together weren’t really all that different than they were in his flat back in London. Cooking together, drinking wine, curled up on the couch reading or watching TV and talking about our days.
Were Thomas and I boring?
Around six o’clock everyone got bundled up to walk down to the church for Christmas Eve services. Paul seemed a bit more sobered up by then, though he was quiet and drawn in his armchair in the corner. I wondered if he might skip out on church, but he joined everyone in the hall to pull on coats and Wellies.
The Harpers lived just outside a little village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The area around their house was hilly, barren fields stretching off in all directions. As we neared the village, though, more and more cottages and houses came into view. The church itself appeared to be about a million years old, made from stone and wooden beams. It even smelled old on the inside, though not unpleasantly so. The Harpers seemed to know every single person in the parish, stopping to chat and introduce me so many times that I lost cost. Finally we ended up in their family pew.
I had loved going to church since I was a little girl. Samuel and Laura used to complain loudly when we had to sit in the sanctuary for the service before Sunday school started, but I secretly loved it. Loved that my family took up an entire pew just to ourselves, loved that I could see cousins and aunts and uncles dotted across the rest of the congregation. I loved the music, the choir. Loved the stained glass windows and the aged yellow bricks. The way people spoke so reverentially, their voices echoing all the way up to the ceiling.
Thomas’s church felt like that. Sure, it was about ten times smaller than the Cathedral we attended at home. And the service was Anglican, not Catholic. I wasn’t familiar with the schedule of worship, not the way I could recite mass in my sleep. And there were only a handful of people I knew in the room, unlike the dozens in church at home.
But the important things were the same. The way the place felt sacred. The way I could practically feel the love between the people sitting around me. The way a special hush seemed to fall over the room as the candles were lit. When the congregation began to sing “Silent Night,” I felt tears come to my eyes, and Thomas reached over to take my hand in his firm, strong grasp. I smiled over at him, and he smiled right back, his love as clear in his eyes as I was sure mine was all over my face.
Yes, the important things were the same.
***
Back at home I was used to a huge meal and lots of gift giving on Christmas Eve, but the Harpers saved their main celebration for the next day. I woke up to delicious smells of coffee and cinnamon.
“Thomas, I will give you a hundred dollars if you go get some coffee,” I murmured into my pillow. He surprised me by sitting up immediately—he was usually pretty much impossible to get out of bed in the morning.
“Happy Christmas, Lizzie,” he said, brushing my hair off my shoulder so he could lean down and kiss my skin. “Come on, get up.”
I moaned. “Why? It’s too early.”
“It’s Christmas morning,” he said, as if he was talking to someone without a grasp on the language. “Christmas morning, Lizzie! That means presents! Come on, get up.”
“You’re as bad as my nieces and nephews.” I pulled myself into a sitting position. “Merry Christmas,” I said through a yawn.
Thomas didn’t give me much time to wake up, pulling me from the bed and tossing my robe at me before I even had a chance to rub my eyes. “Am I allowed to go to the bathroom first?” I asked, my arms crossed. “Or will that take to much time?”
He flopped back on the bed dramatically. “Go on.”
I laughed, shaking my head as I went to use the bathroom and brush my teeth. When I got back to the room, Thomas was waiting eagerly by the door. His face lit up at the sight of me, and soon he was tugging my hand until we reached the kitchen.
“Happy Christmas!” Anne said, turning to us as we entered. She was wearing a red fleece robe and wonky handmade slippers while flipping bacon at the stove. We both kissed her before grabbing mugs and pouring ourselves some coffee.
“Are we the first ones up?” I asked, looking around the still and empty room.
She laughed. “Thomas is always the first one up on Christmas morning. Always. I’m surprised if he sleeps at all.
He hung his head a little, looking sheepish. “It’s true. I’m a sucker for presents and yummy things to eat.”
I laughed. With his sleep-mussed hair and bright red flannel pajama bottoms, he looked more like a little boy than an internationally known movie star. “I didn’t notice you this eager last year,” I said.
“Last year I was hanging on for dear life. Trying not to be buried under a sea of cousins and aunties trying to kiss me.”
I laughed, trying hard to ignore the pang in my chest at the mention of Christmas at home. I looked at the clock and counted backward in my head, feeling better immediately. No one in Detroit was awake yet. Somehow the fact that I would be celebrating Christmas while they were still snug in bed made it feel less real—less like I was missing it.
The rest of the family, minus Paul, joined us a few minutes later, drawn by the smell of bacon and coffee. We took o
ur breakfasts out to the living room to eat in front of the fire. “You were right about these scones,” I told Gilbert, and his chest puffed up considerably.
“Well, shall we do presents, then?” Anne asked, looking worriedly at the clock. Paul was still upstairs, probably sleeping off his hangover.
“I’ll go get him,” Bryony said, stretching as she stood. “Some coffee might do him good.”
Once we were all gathered, Gilbert began to distribute the presents under the tree. I was saving Thomas’s big gift for later, but he seemed very pleased with his first gift from me, a sweater. His parents said they loved the tablet from the both of us, though I was pretty sure they didn’t entirely understand what it was for. Bryony kept looking from me to Thomas, almost expectantly. I remembered her words from yesterday and blushed again.
I hadn’t given much thought to Thomas proposing, to be honest. I felt in my heart that it would happen, someday. I couldn’t imagine being without him, and I knew that he loved me very much. We talked about the future sometimes, mostly when we were lying in bed in the dark, or sharing a bottle of wine. But there had never been any kind of time frame involved.
He wouldn’t propose now, would he? Not when he was so busy with the movie and we were transplanted in L.A. Surely he would wait awhile? Or we’d talk about it more, first. Even so, I started to feel a thrum of anticipation in my stomach as the gifts were passed.
But I was sure he wouldn’t propose, not yet. I really was.
Almost.
When I was finally handed a gift from Thomas I thought I might faint. It was exactly the size of a ring box. I heard a sharp intake of breath from across the room and realized Bryony’s eyes were trained on the box. With trembling fingers, I unwrapped the gold paper to find a small, black jewelry box.
“Open it,” Thomas said encouragingly. He was smiling at me, his face open and happy. He didn’t look like a man about to propose. Did he?
I realized I’d been holding the box for nearly a full minute without moving. He probably thought I was crazy. Now or never, Lizzie. I snapped the box open.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d given me, but I knew it was not an engagement ring. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.
Lovestruck in Los Angeles Page 10