I Heart Christmas (11 page)

‘Um, maybe a week? Is that OK?’ she asked.

‘Of course it is.’ I put my scalding tea down and gave her as big a hug as I could muster. ‘I just wish you were staying for Christmas.’

‘Well, we could, you know.’ Louisa’s eyes lit up. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’

‘I’m pretty sure Tim would have something to say about it,’ I joked, head on her shoulder. ‘But I’d be very happy. Things have been batshit here lately and you are a bloody sight for sore eyes.’

Across the room, Grace started clapping at the TV. Oh, she was a
True Blood
fan too.

‘Oh shit, Grace, don’t look at that,’ I shouted, scrambling for the remote while Louisa darted across the room and scooped her child up into her arms.

‘Hi,’ Grace said, clambering away from her mother and settling herself against my white cotton shirt, pawing me with sticky fingers. Because what this shirt was really missing was chocolatey handprints. ‘I’m Grace.’

‘Gracie, this is your Auntie Angela.’ Louisa lovingly patted Grace’s blonde hair down, oblivious to the dry cleaning disaster happening in front of her. I hadn’t realised what a mini-me she had become from all the photos Lou had posted on Facebook. It was frightening how alike they were. ‘You remember Auntie Angela, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ The baby beamed her approval by sticking her hand directly in my face. ‘Anala.’

‘I’ve been called worse today,’ I said, kissing her forehead. She smelled all milky and weird. ‘Thanks, Grace.’

‘She’s in a real chatterbox phase,’ Louisa said, looking far too proud for someone who had just let their child watch two vampires going at it for ten or so minutes. ‘And she wants to touch everything.’

‘So I see.’ I looked at my blouse and said nothing. ‘I can’t believe she’s already a year old.’

‘Nineteen months next week,’ Lou sighed. ‘It’s mental. Doesn’t seem like two minutes since I was bringing her home from the hospital.’

‘I feel like I would fixate more on the part where you heaved her out of your vagina,’ I commented, relaxing into my toddler hug. It was odd but it wasn’t so bad.

‘Well, yes, you would,’ she replied. ‘But it really is best to just put that behind you as soon as you can.’

‘Do you think you’ll have any more?’ I asked, thinking of how quickly Erin had taken to churning them out. ‘Is Tim desperate to turn out his only manly man mini-me?’

‘You know, I am so tired,’ she said, snatching a giggly Grace out of my arms and standing up. ‘Shouldn’t we get the airbed out or something?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ I stood up as well, mostly to make the moment less awkward. ‘You can sleep in my room. Me and Alex will go on the airbed.’

‘You don’t actually know where the airbed is, do you?’

‘I know where it isn’t,’ I replied. ‘Go on, get ready for bed and I’ll see you in the morning. I’ve got the day off so we’ll do something fun.’

‘Brilliant,’ she leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. ‘It’s so bloody good to see you, Clark.’

‘Bloody good to be seen,’ I said, slapping her bum and giving Gracie a kiss all of her own. If anyone asked about the stains on the shirt, I’d just tell them it was a new Mary Katrantzou print and really, who would be any the wiser?

It was another hour before Alex arrived home, all chapped cheeks and watery eyes. I silently accepted a quick kiss while he took off his three outermost layers and started excitedly relaying all of our moving news. Leaning over the back of the sofa, I watched as he went straight into the kitchen, debating the value of full-service movers versus hiring someone to do the heavy stuff and us doing the rest with the band’s van, carefully stepping over Grace’s toys and moving around Louisa’s suitcase. I didn’t even laugh until he opened the fridge, ignored the dozens of juice cartons and premixed formula, and reached right in for a Coke.

‘Craig and Graham will totally help,’ he said, collapsing on the sofa and staring at the Christmas tree. ‘And it’s not like we have that much …’

I placed my hands on his shoulders, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

‘Angela?’

‘Alex.’

‘Why is there a box of diapers under the tree?’

‘We have a visitor,’ I said, kissing the other cheek and clambering over the back of the sofa to join him. ‘Louisa and Grace are here.’

Alex closed his eyes, shook his head and opened them again.

‘What?’

‘I know,’ I said, snuggling up to him as close as I could. ‘Unexpected. They’re in our bed.’

‘Is she OK? I mean, that’s not super like her, is it?’ He raked a hand through his hair, a look of concern on his face.

He was the best. Whatever past life Angela had had to get me this man in this life, I couldn’t thank her enough. At this point, I was starting to believe there was a good chance that I had been Jesus. Or at least one of those people who hand out free cheese in the supermarket.

‘I think,’ I replied. ‘She’s being a bit vague and she doesn’t want to talk about Tim, like, at all, but I’ll find out tomorrow when she’s not so knackered.’

‘Cool.’ He kissed the end of my nose and sighed. ‘I gotta tell you, I kind of thought, just for a second there, those diapers were your wacky way of telling me you were pregnant.’

I laughed. And laughed. And then laughed some more.

‘What?’ Alex looked at me. ‘It’s such a crazy idea?’

‘On top of moving and starting the new job and everything else?’ I asked. ‘Yes. It’s such a crazy idea.’

‘I don’t think it would be so bad,’ he said, draining his drink and turning his attention to me. ‘I think it would be kind of awesome actually.’

‘Grace has been here for two hours,’ I said, pointing at the chocolate-covered rug and the chocolate-covered me, ‘and she has decimated the apartment.’

‘I just figured you’d been in the Nutella again,’ he said, his fingers dancing around the buttons on my shirt.

‘That was one time,’ I replied, slapping his hands away. ‘And there’s a baby in the next room. Control yourself, man.’

‘Fine,’ he pouted, fastening me right up to the throat and kissing my nose. ‘I’ll go get the air mattress out the basement.’

Aah, the basement. Of course.

‘You can stay there and think up baby names.’ Alex stood up and stretched with a great big grin on his face. His stupid, handsome face.

‘But I’ve already got you a present,’ I shouted after him as he vanished through the front door. ‘And it doesn’t need changing five times a day.’

One of my biggest concerns about motherhood had always been how early I would have to get up in the morning. At six fourteen the following morning, that concern was proved to be valid.

‘Anala!’ Grace leapt onto the airbed, displaying no interest in how ironic she was making her name. ‘Aah.’

Without another peep, she crawled under the covers and draped herself across me, thumb in mouth, eyes wide open.

‘Hey, Grace,’ Alex said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and yawning loudly. ‘Do you remember me?’

‘No,’ she replied without even looking at him. Graceless and tactless. Admittedly only nineteen months old but still, when did a girl gather her manners?

‘Morning,’ Louisa sang out as she sailed out of the bedroom, looking as though the last twenty-four hours hadn’t even happened. ‘Shall I put the coffee on? Hello, Alex, sorry to wake you up so early. Madam doesn’t understand the concept of jet lag.’

‘No problem,’ Alex replied, rolling off the airbed and subtly adjusting his boxers while he thought no one was looking. ‘Let me make the coffee, you take a seat. It’s not really that early.’

He was such a filthy liar. Alex Reid never saw the wrong side of ten a.m. if he could help it. I’d had to develop a full-on stealthy getting ready system so that I could sneak out of the apartment in the morning without waking him up that mostly involved getting dressed in the bathroom and trying not to fall over. It had a fifty–fifty success rate.

‘So what are the grand plans for today?’ Louisa breezed, appearing above me with a sippy cup and outstretched arms. ‘Christmas in New York. Dazzle me.’

I handed over the baby, now fully aware of why Louisa had such awesome, toned arms. ‘I don’t know.’ I looked longingly at Alex. So much for our day together. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lou said. ‘We did all the touristy things when we came out for your wedding. You’re the Christmas addict. Surely there’s something fabulous me, you and Gracie could do together?’

‘We could go ice skating?’ I suggested. ‘Would she like that?’

‘Bit too young, I think,’ she replied. ‘What would you be doing if I wasn’t here?’

I eyed my husband’s backside as he bent over the coffee maker, trying to work out why it wasn’t making coffee, and coughed. ‘I don’t think you’d want to do what I’d be doing if you weren’t here,’ I said, wondering when would be a good time to tell him he needed to plug it in first. ‘Christmas shopping?’

‘Ooh.’ Louisa’s face lit up. ‘I could always do with grabbing a few bits. Might not be the best thing to do with madam here, though. She hasn’t quite grasped the concept of “not everything is mine” yet.’

Alex, having finally woken up enough to locate the ‘on’ switch, sat down beside Lou on the sofa and ruffled Grace’s hair.

‘I can look after Grace if you guys want to go off into the city?’ he suggested. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘That’s really sweet,’ Lou said as Grace turned to eye her wannabe babysitter with suspicion. ‘But she can be a real pain in the arse if you’re not used to kids. I’m saying that and I love her. I couldn’t put you through it for an entire day.’

‘What if it was just half a day?’ he said. ‘I’ll take the morning shift so you guys can shop and talk shit about me and Tim and then I’ll find something fun for us to do all together this afternoon?’

‘You, sir, are a genius,’ Lou said with a smile. ‘How does that sound to you, Angela?’

It sounded to me like she was right – Alex was a genius. He knew I needed some alone time with Louisa to find out what was going on and he knew that if I entered Bloomingdales with Grace, I was likely to exit without her. To think he was willing to throw himself onto that adorable blonde grenade for me …

‘It’ll be good practice for me anyway, right, Ange?’ Alex hoisted Grace onto his lap, earning himself a punch to the nose, followed by a hug. ‘Log some babysitting hours before we get one of our own.’

Louisa turned her head towards me very slowly, an incredibly smug look on her face and eyebrows quirked so high they were practically in space.

‘Good practice,’ I replied weakly. ‘I’m going to go and have a shower then.’

Mew.

New York had decided to give us a break with the weather, and as we trotted up the subway steps at 59th and Lex, the sun shone happily and the air was fresh. The snow that had fallen the night before had all but vanished, and, if it weren’t for the Christmas carols blaring out of the speakers outside Bloomingdales, you might have mistaken it for a fresh spring day. Something I would have been hard-pressed to mistake for anything else was the sexy silhouette of one Jenny Lopez as she strode up the street to meet us. While hiding in the shower, I realised I was going to need help with Lou – in the shopping
and
interrogation stakes – and Jenny was an expert at both. A quick email exchange later and she had called in to the office with a personal day and was on her way to Bloomies. She and Louisa had experienced what was fair to say a bumpy start to their friendship but they had been so far up each other’s arses at mine and Alex’s wedding the summer before, I was almost surprised that Lou had shown up on my doorstep and not Jenny’s.

‘Lou Lou!’ Jenny bounded across the street with little to no concern for the ‘Don’t Walk’ sign and barrelled straight into Louisa, spinning her around and almost knocking us both to the ground. ‘Ohmigod, you look amazing! How do you look amazing? You just got in yesterday? You should look like shit. You should look like Angie. Angie, how come you look like shit?’

Louisa looked like a woman reborn, all shiny hair, rosy cheeks and clothes that didn’t need ironing. I looked as though I’d been woken up at six a.m. and had spent the night sleeping on an air mattress next to a man who had forgotten all duvet-sharing etiquette, for no apparent reason.

‘Hi, Jenny. Thanks. You look nice.’

‘Well, duh.’ She threw her long, curly ponytail over her shoulder and gave me a cursory peck on the cheek. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘Christmas shopping?’ I said, pointing up at the best department store in the entire world. ‘Shameless indulgence? And then maybe a cheeky midday beverage?’

‘First stop for you is the make-up counter because you need all of the make-up.’ Jenny waved her hand in my face. My sad, unmade-up face. ‘Jesus, Angie, it’s always like I’m starting over with you.’

‘This is what you get for trying to do nice things for people,’ I sulked, letting the two of them bully me through the doors as they cackled to each other.

I’d given Jenny a very brief overview of the situation in my email and warned her that my unexpected visitor wasn’t really feeling terribly chatty about whatever was going on so we’d probably need to use a softly-softly approach. But, of course, softly-softly to me wasn’t the same as softly-softly to La Lopez. We had only been wandering around the second floor for five minutes when she started.

‘So, Lou Lou,’ Jenny said, picking up a Kooples blazer, scrutinising it for a second and then putting it back with a tiny shake of the head. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘Hmm?’ Louisa let out a confused noise while fingering the price tag of an extortionately expensive plain white T-shirt. ‘What’s that?’

I bit my lip, hovering at Lou’s side and wondering whether or not to intervene. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.

‘You, here, what gives?’ Jenny thrust a cropped black cashmere jumper at me and carried on her questioning. ‘Kind of a weird thing to do, don’t you think?’

Folding her arms over her boobs, Louisa looked at the floor and shook her head. Nope, this definitely wasn’t a good idea.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied, her voice becoming very crisp and proper. ‘I’m just here to see Angela. Just a last-minute trip, that’s all.’