Married By Christmas (14 page)

Liv kissed Simon on the cheek as she opened the front door, to find Tom standing there with a bottle of wine cradled in his arms.

‘Oh God,’ Simon said.

‘Hi, Simon,’ Tom said. ‘Everything OK?’

‘No,’ Simon said. ‘Shouldn’t you be on a plane, on your way to tell your loved one that you adore her?’

‘I don’t know … I thought … I thought she probably needed some space. Do you think I should get a ticket?’

Simon turned to Liv. ‘Come home with me, we’ll make you sushi and watch
Casualty
, you know how you love it.’

‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Liv said. ‘You go. Go on. I’ll see you soon.’

‘Noël Coward!’ Simon called as he left reluctantly.

‘What’s he on about?’ Tom asked as Liv stood aside and let him into the hallway.

‘The thing is,’ she said. ‘The thing is I’m really tired and it’s been a long day and I haven’t heard from Anna, so I’ve got nothing to tell you and …’

‘I thought we should clear the air, after the dress thing,’ Tom said, holding out the wine. ‘I want to apologise. First of all, for being so stupid as to walk in on a dress fitting and put you in a position where you have to lie to Anna. And, secondly, for reacting to the way you … the way you looked, the way I did. It was completely out of order.’

‘It was nothing,’ Liv said, rolling her eyes. ‘It was the dress, and the veil and the … tissues. You weren’t really seeing me, you were seeing Anna. And I can promise you when you see her coming up the aisle in that dress, she will look ten times better than I did in it.’

‘Anna will look amazing in it, if she is still going to marry me, that is, and not decide to stay in New York for ever, but that’s not what I mean. I mean, you said that I thought you looked beautiful because of the dress. And it’s true, part of me did think that, the man part. But I wanted you know, Liv, you are one of the most beautiful people I know, and not just on the outside. And it’s important to me that you know I do see you, I see the real you every day. You are my best friend, and that’s worth a hundred pretty dresses and sparkly crowns to me.’

Liv stared at him as he stood in the doorway, telling her almost everything she’d wanted, dreamed of hearing from him, and she realised that there was only one thing she could do.

‘You have to go to New York,’ she said. ‘If Anna won’t talk to you, you have to follow her, find her and make her see that you love her, and that it doesn’t matter if you get married this Christmas or next. You have to go, Tom. Show her that this means as much to you as it does to her.’

Tom nodded. ‘I know, he said. ‘I know I have to go and find her. That’s the other thing I came to tell you and to ask you something else.’

‘What?’ Liv asked, already knowing the question before it was formed on his lips.

‘Will you come too?’

Chapter Ten

‘Look!’ Anna said holding up a Dolce & Gabbana dress and smoothing it down over her hips.

After their escape from the clutches of Max at the Scarlet Slipper, Anna seemed uninterested in going to look for Erica Barnes right away, and declared that she was going shopping. She hadn’t asked Miles to accompany her, but accompany her he did, looking perhaps a little incongruous in his jeans and biker boots, as Anna wandered wide-eyed around the ground floor of Saks. The store was a perfect vision of New York-style Christmas cheer – chic little trees, with lights that twinkled in perfect unison, the scent of cinnamon and spices in the air. It mingled with the large quantities of expensive perfume Anna had sprayed all over herself with the sort of abandon that only a girl who’d once had nothing could display. She had delighted in riding the ‘elevator’, insisting they get out on every single floor, cooing with excitement at the toy department, complete with grotto and a very authentic-looking Santa. The grotto itself was built into the centre of a huge model railway display, complete with a tiny steam train that puffed and tooted its merry little way through tiny forests and over snow-peaked papier-mâché mountains.

In menswear, Anna had discovered a five-thousand-dollar suit that she thought would look amazing on Tom.

‘If only he were here,’ she grumbled, pressing the jacket up against Miles’s shoulders. ‘No it’s no good, you’re bit taller than him, and wider in the shoulders.’

‘Am I?’ Miles said, pleased with himself. ‘Anyway, if you miss him so much, why don’t you answer his calls or his texts? Your phone might be on silent but I’ve heard it vibrate in your bag about twenty times today.’

Abruptly, Anna put the jacket back on the rail and marched for the lift again. Shrugging, Miles had followed her, cramming his large frame into the tiny space, already full of women so groomed to within an inch of their life that they made Anna look almost shabby.

‘All I’m saying is,’ Miles began, while the lift’s cohabitants did their best not to look at him, ‘that the reason you’re here is because you want to marry this dude, like soon. You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make it happen, and, amazingly, you’re in with a really good chance, so why don’t you answer his calls, Annie? That’s what I want to know.’

A lady with hair far too jet black for her years, which were clearly considerably older than her collagen-plumped lips, had turned around to look at Anna. She might have raised a curious brow if her face hadn’t been frozen in time.

Anna had pursed her lips, staring resolutely ahead until the shiny brass doors slid open on womenswear, then gasped in delight at the veritable Aladdin’s cave of designer fashion – fashion that she could probably just as easily find at home in Harvey Nichols or Selfridges, but which for some reason here, in this wonderful city, seemed all the more magical.

‘What do you think of this?’ Anna asked Miles about the dress, slipping her coat off and hooking the halter neck over her head to get a better idea. ‘Oh if only I had three thousand and something dollars and was a size zero, or even a four, even a size four would be OK. I did try giving up carbs, but it was like … giving up sunshine.’

‘Anna,’ Miles said, ‘answer the question. Why aren’t you talking to Tom, filling him in on what’s going on?’ Anna sighed, slumping down on the edge of a platform housing a size zero mannequin, the dress still hooked around her neck.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, looking up at Miles. ‘I want to talk to him, but then every time I’m about to answer my phone … I don’t.’

‘I get that you’re angry and hurt,’ Miles said, taking a seat next to her. ‘But you still love him, because you want to go through with the wedding.’

‘The thing is I have the most amazing dress,’ Anna told him, absently. ‘Not that that’s why I want to go through with the wedding, well maybe a bit, but not entirely. But it is sort of why I want to do it now, and not in the spring or the summer, because that’s in my plan you see. My life plan. A Christmas wedding is one of the immovable things in my life, like the North Star fixed in the sky. Something I’ve dreamed of since …’

‘Since what?’ Miles asked her.

Anna shook her head. ‘I will talk to him, just not yet,’ she said. ‘I feel like I need to meet Charisma or Erica or whatever she’s calling herself first. See what I’m up against.’

‘But, babe, this girl, she’s not your competition. She’s the past.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Anna said, thinking of Mimi Me’s comments about the one who got away. ‘I’ve got the distinct impression from her friend that Charisma might have other ideas about what she wants.’

‘What she wants doesn’t matter,’ Miles said. ‘It’s you and Tom and your wedding dress that are getting married, isn’t it? I think you should talk to him, Anna. Hear the sound of his voice, and then you’ll know how you feel about him.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t know how I felt about him,’ Anna said, looking sharply at Miles.

‘If you say so,’ Miles said.

Remaining silent, Anna got to her feet and hung the dress back on the rail, her shoulders drooping as if suddenly the pleasure and delight she was taking in her surroundings had just drained out of her. Miles also climbed to his feet.

‘And for the record, just so you know, size zero, or size two or four or even six and eight, not usually very sexy. I don’t know what size you are – most men don’t care about that sort of thing – but it’s the right one, trust me.’

At any other point in their brief association Anna would have been offended and annoyed by Miles assessing the merits of her body so openly, but on this occasion she could tell that he wasn’t trying some hamfisted move, he was simply attempting to be kind and to cheer her up, and the funny thing was, it worked.

‘It reminds me of that song,’ Anna found herself telling Miles over an enjoyable plate of pasta in a little Italian they had found on the way back to the hotel. She was gazing out of the window, at the icy night outside, watching the Friday night crowds bowl past, the world rushing by full of a purpose and intent that for once she didn’t feel privy to. Instead, ever since Anna had found herself one step closer to actually pulling off the impossible and finding Tom’s secret wife in time for her wedding to go ahead, there had been something else. An almost overwhelming urge to just run away, somewhere very far, curl up in a ball and not come out again until spring.

‘What song?’ Miles asked her, sucking a piece of spaghetti up through his pursed lips like the Tramp from the Disney movie.

‘The one by the hippy woman, with the high voice, where she wishes she had a river she could skate away on.’

‘Joni Mitchell?’ Miles asked her, surprised as Anna clicked her fingers and nodded. ‘You don’t strike me as a Joni fan. It’s the way you describe one of history’s greatest singer-songwriters as that “hippy woman” that sort of gives it away.’

‘I’m not really,’ Anna admitted with a rueful smile. ‘Or at least I would be except that in my first year at uni they made me share a room with this girl who wore tie-dyed headscarves … Jessica Parkinson, bloody awful example of humanity. The sort of person who was destined to grow up, have four kids called Jocasta and kill foxes at the weekend, but was pretending to be alternative in the meantime, which is mental, because, you know, what sort of alternative person listens to Joni Mitchell in two thousand and five? But anyway Joni Mitchell was constantly on her headphones. All I could hear was this annoying tinny little voice in the background all the time, like there was a tiny mouse trapped somewhere moaning about big yellow taxis.’

Anna checked her impromptu rant when she noticed that Miles was laughing at her.

‘Couldn’t you have turned your own music up?’ Miles asked, almost choking on a meatball.

‘I didn’t really have my own music,’ Anna admitted. ‘Liv was always the one who was into music, discovering bands and making me go to gigs. When I was small we didn’t really ever listen to music, not even on the radio. And after I moved in with Liv, well, I suppose I just got into whatever Liv and Simon were into. I was never really bothered one way or the other. But I got so sick of this tinny little voice coming from Jessica’s headphones that one day I asked her to just stick the CD on and play it out loud, which she did non-stop for the rest of the year until I finally escaped her and went to share a house with some Christian Scientist students, who weren’t very fun, but very tidy. Anyway, I heard the same CD so many times that I suppose it was sort of like aversion therapy, after a while I actually began to love it, especially the “skating away on a river” song. I mean I hadn’t broken up with a boy or anything, like in the song, but Christmas …’ Anna paused, gazing out of the window once more at the fury of passers-by. ‘Christmas has always made me want to find a river to skate away on.’

‘Why?’ Miles asked, when she paused in her ramble. He leaned in towards her slightly, examining her profile in the candlelight, as she stared at her own translucent reflection in the glass.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Anna said absently. ‘I’ve always seemed to be on the wrong side of the glass, I suppose.’ She straightened her shoulders and sat up, smiling brightly at Miles. ‘Except for now, this Christmas will be different, because it’s
my
Christmas and it’s the Christmas where I get married to the man I love.’

‘Hooray,’ Miles said quietly, balling one fist and shaking it in a half-hearted salute. ‘Good for you.’

‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Anna said, noticing that his good mood seemed to have taken a significant dip since they started talking about Joni Mitchell. ‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’ Miles asked, polishing off his glass of red wine in one long draught and reaching for the bottle.

‘Well, when is your audition? Isn’t it tomorrow? And you haven’t done a thing to prepare for it since we got here. Which makes me feel terrible, because you’ve mainly been helping me.’

‘Ah yes, my audition.’ Miles looked out of the window, craning his neck to get a glimpse of the snow-laden sky that lay low over the tips of the skyscrapers. ‘I don’t know if there is much prep I can do, really. I mean I’m not going to play, or sing any better tomorrow at two p.m. than I do now. I would like to have finished that song I was writing, shown them original material, but there’s still time.’

‘Still time!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘No there isn’t, you need to go back to the hotel now and start working on it. This is your big break, your moment, your chance, you can’t just shrug your shoulders and see how it goes, you have to be prepared!’

‘I am prepared,’ Miles told her. ‘By twenty years of playing and writing. And besides, haven’t you learned yet that you can’t always be prepared for what life throws at you.’

‘Surprise wives, perhaps not,’ Anna said, leaning forwards a little across the table and brandishing her fork at him. ‘But auditions, hell yes, you can. You’ve bet everything you’ve got on this chance, Miles. Don’t stuff it up by hanging around with me. Which doesn’t mean I’m not weirdly glad that you’ve been here, and that I don’t realise that I wouldn’t have gotten nearly so far so quickly without you, I do. You’ve been really … helpful. But this is your chance, you have to do every single thing you can to make sure you make the most of this opportunity.’

Miles watched her for a moment, in the candlelight, night creeping up on them as they ate, a small smile playing on his lips, as he tipped his head to one side.

‘You really care about stuff, don’t you? Even my stuff. That’s nice. I like that about you.’

‘I care about … getting things right,’ Anna said, surprised by her own passion. ‘About not letting anything that fate might want to throw at you drag you down and back to …’ She faltered to a stop, taking a deep breath and then a sip of wine. ‘I care about trying your best. I suppose that’s kind of old-fashioned.’

‘What happened to you?’ Miles asked, his brows furrowing. ‘I know you were fostered by Simon’s family, although the way he talks about you you’d never know you weren’t his blood relation, but what happened before that to make you so … scared?’

‘I’m not scared,’ Anna protested, dropping her gaze from his, because that was exactly what she was, all of the time, every single moment that she was awake, and she spent a great deal of time making sure that no one, not Tom, not even Liv, ever noticed it.

‘Maybe you aren’t,’ Miles said, not willing to force her to acknowledge what he felt was true. ‘But do you realise that you refer to yourself as mad and weird and mental all the time, and that you imply Tom must be a saint for putting up with you because you are so awful?’

‘No I don’t!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Do I? I don’t know, I just know that I’m not … Liv. Simon’s sister – did you meet her?’ Anna didn’t wait for an answer. ‘She’s my best friend, my sister really. Liv always knows exactly what to do and say and how to be and people always like her straight away. Tom did, from the first moment he met her. For a while there, when we first started dating, he talked more about her than he did about me. I was starting to get a complex. Actually I’ve got a complex. I know I’m not Liv, I didn’t grow up knowing how to just be in the world the way she does. I know I’m not easy to like, like she is, because I’m prickly and difficult and disjointed.’

‘You’re doing it again,’ Miles said. ‘You aren’t like that at all, you know. Not once you stop telling everyone you are. It’s like you’re scared to let anyone see the good in you.’

‘No … really?’ Anna said, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t really think of myself as good. I think if myself as … taxing.’

‘But why? Because you like to make a few lists and you prefer it when things go your way? That doesn’t make you weird, that just makes you you. And, by the way, you should realise that for a person to be really scared, and still get up and face the world every day with a sword-rattling battle cry, well, that makes them also really brave, and pretty amazing. What have you been through, Anna?’

‘My mum died,’ Anna said, trotting out the B version of her life, the one she always gave to strangers. ‘My dad was already dead and I didn’t have any relatives so I got put into care. I met Liv when I started a new school, and her family took me in. I’ve been so lucky really. I couldn’t have asked for more.’