Mistletoe on 34th Street Read online

  ‘A superhero!’ she yelled again, jumping up and down for me.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that … ?’

  ‘A superhero,’ she and the other girls bellowed at me, and I laughed.

  The girls were drenched right through, nearly to the same extent as us runners, and so they zoomed home quickly afterwards. I was now thawing out under a heat lamp, cuddling a hot chocolate and wearing a Santa hat (whose Santa hat was this?). I was spending a lovely few moments thinking about how strong and brave I was, when my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone calling my name from outside the tent.

  ‘Olivia! Over here. Look down a bit.’

  ‘Scheana, what happened?’ I leapt up and hobbled outside the tent, shaking the remaining water from my ears. My manager was lying, damp and bedraggled, on a stretcher. Two paramedics moved aside and tended to a dislocated shoulder while I spoke with her. This place was a warzone. Sort of.

  ‘I think I might have broken my leg,’ said Scheana with a shrug. ‘No biggie, but I think I’ll be out of action for a while.’

  ‘Bloody hell, where?’

  ‘Lower leg, I think.’

  ‘But where on the course?’

  ‘On one of the big log things.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep, loads, but I wanted to talk to you about work.’

  ‘Now?’ I shifted my weight and I’m sure I heard either my sodden T-shirt or my rib crack. Was I starting to freeze?

  ‘Just a quick thing. Well done on completing, by the way, you did brilliantly, I’m so proud of you all.’ Scheana reached out and squeezed my hand like a person on their deathbed. ‘Urgh, you’re glacial. I’ll keep this quick. New York is ten days today, and I’m not going to be able to go.’

  I must still have had a lot of water in my ears, because I couldn’t be hearing this right. ‘You’re not going to what?’

  ‘I’m not going to go. To New York. My leg won’t be better in time. So I need someone to take over as head of Girls of the World. Temporarily. That person needs to represent the company in New York, and try to push us forward. They’ll need to be quick-thinking and a good problem solver, even with few resources. You have no idea how many little tasks befall a manager in the lead-up to a trip like this.’

  ‘I’LL DO IT!’ I yelled. ‘Let me do it, I won’t let you down. Can I do it?’ This was the break I’d been waiting for, for so long now. I wasn’t pleased that Scheana had broken her leg, and I wasn’t trying to squeeze her out, but with Girls of the World growing and expanding so quickly, I wanted to be part of it. One day I wanted to be a director in this company.

  ‘Are you sure? It’s a big responsibility. I’m not talking about you opening up our first US office or anything, but that’s where we want to be heading. I’d want you to get some balls rolling; it’s not just about publicity this year. I want Girls of the World to have its foot wedged in the door of Manhattan by the time I go out in the Spring.’

  ‘Consider me your go-to girl for wedging!’

  Scheana hesitated ‘You’ve had a busy year. You aren’t feeling too burnt out?’

  ‘No.’ Yes.

  ‘Because you don’t know busy until you’ve been in charge of something like this.’

  ‘I can do it. I’ve been to New York four years in a row and I want to be more involved. You focus on your recovery and I’ll look after everything. I promise.’ Ohmygod, could I do this? Yes, of course I could. I had to now, thanks, big gob.

  ‘Good, I was hoping you’d say that. In that case, from now until the new year, you’re the boss.’

  And with that, the paramedics returned and wheeled Scheana away. I stood motionless for a moment, partly because I was now an ice sculpture, partly because I had a million thoughts whizzing around my head. I was in charge of New York. Like Godzilla! Completing the Fearless Freeze had made me feel pretty invincible, like a poster girl for Nike, so I could definitely conquer running the New York trip. This was going to be easy.

  I returned to the tent and squeezed my bum back onto the bench under the heat lamp, in between a snoring woman and a man who looked close to throwing up.

  I was the boss …

  Dee appeared, her long frame pink all over from the severest of workouts. ‘Um, did I just see Scheana on a stretcher?’

  I nodded. ‘She thinks she’s broken her leg. She’s OK though, she’s gone off in an ambulance.’ I knew Scheana wouldn’t want her injury to overshadow our achievement so I added, ‘She says well done to everyone. Look what we just did! That was hard work but we slayed those muddy hills and slippery bloody monkey bars.’

  ‘What about those dangling electric wires?’ said Ian, staggering over to us and putting his hand on Dee’s back before quickly removing it. ‘I nearly gave up at that point.’

  ‘I welcomed that,’ I said, like I was some kind of Kray twin. Like a boss. ‘The electric shocks warmed me up.’

  Dee and Ian had been into each other for so long it was sometimes hard to remember that they weren’t ‘public’. Ever since Ian joined marketing at Girls of the World several years ago they’d been close, but despite the lingering looks, the obvious chemistry and co-workers spotting them out together at least once a month, they’d never come clean about their relationship. They clearly wanted privacy, for whatever reason, so it was an unwritten Girls of the World rule that we all respected that.

  ‘Right, folks,’ Kim said, walking into the tent with a leaflet clutched in her hand. ‘It says the tear gas used under that polythene obstacle wasn’t real tear gas and it was totally safe. So you’re not going to go blind. Olivia.’

  I blinked a few times to make sure. ‘OK thanks. All right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘So I have something to tell you guys about Scheana and New York … ’

  9 December

  2 weeks, 2 days to Christmas

  I scrolled through the music on my iPhone – surely I had at least one Christmas track on here? Ah-ha! ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen; that counted. I stuck it on repeat and put my phone in the speaker dock just as my doorbell rang.

  ‘Shit me, it’s freezing out!’ burst Kim, as I opened my front door to the sight of my friend – all pink nose and frostbitten fingers – peering out from a mummification of long woollen scarves.

  She pushed me aside and unpeeled the layers down to a moderate covering of two woollen jumper dresses, tights, snow boots and a hot water bottle. Kim was always cold, even in the summer, so December in the UK was her Everest.

  ‘I’m not even sorry about choosing Antigua over you any more,’ said Kim, shaking out her curls. ‘It’s definitely true what they’re saying; winter is coming.’

  ‘Let it Jon Snow … ’ I muttered with a smirk, leading Kim to the living room. She stopped short.

  ‘I thought we were having a Christmas party?’ she demanded. ‘Where are your decorations?’

  ‘It’s only you and me.’

  ‘I don’t care! It’s our annual Christmas get-together, you insisted that we have it at your house, and you don’t even have a tree. I’m sorry, are we homeless? Christmas isn’t Christmas without a muthaflippin’ Christmas tree.’

  ‘You’ll be in Antigua over Christmas – good luck finding a Christmas tree there!’ I looked around my sparse maisonette. ‘Besides, there are decorations.’ I wafted an arm past a tea light on a side plate, and a bottle of Baileys.

  ‘Argh.’ Kim started furiously wrapping herself back up in her four-hundred-foot scarf. ‘First of all, Antigua will have a lot of Christmas trees, and second of all, we have to go and get you a Christmas tree. Now.’

  ‘But … but … ’ I looked around. ‘We can’t go out now, the pizza’s in the … freezer.’

  Kim wasn’t listening. She was already nose-deep in my hall cupboard. She emerged and lobbed an armful of coats my way. ‘Dress warm, come on.’

  ‘You’re so hardy since we did the Fearless Freeze,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m so hardy, Tom Hardy called and wants h
is name back.’

  ‘You’re so tough, you should marry Hilary Duff.’

  ‘You’re so weird, you should grow a beard.’

  We stepped outside and the cold air hit me like a dry-ice bucket challenge. The dark street twinkled as wet pavements reflected the strings of Christmas lights between lamp-posts. I stamped my feet and blew into one clenched fist while I locked my door. ‘Where exactly does one buy a Christmas tree at seven p.m. in the middle of London?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Kim, marching off down the street before whizzing around. ‘Actually, of course I do. How do you feel about artificial trees?’

  I shrugged, unsure what the right answer was.

  ‘Shrug? That’s all you give me? Your mother taught you better than that, lady. Always have an opinion, am I right? And everyone has an opinion on real versus fake. Do you like them full, real and nice-smelling, or perfect, symmetrical and low-maintenance?’

  ‘Are we still talking about trees?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I think I prefer fake. Because I kill things.’

  A passing teenage boy darted a shocked look at me, clutched his phone tightly and ran away.

  ‘Plants, I kill plants,’ I clarified loudly. ‘And therefore probably trees.’

  ‘Then answer me this,’ said Kim, a big smile creeping onto her half-hidden face. ‘What do you think of when I say “Christmas shopping”?’

  ‘Oh!’ I knew this. ‘The scene in Love Actually with Rowan Atkinson and the necklace and the dried flowers and the cellophane.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Serendipity? You know, when they meet over the last pair of gloves?’

  ‘No, something not from a Christmas movie.’

  ‘January sales?’

  ‘What is wrong with you? John Lewis, of course!’ We reached the tube station and within minutes were squeezed among commuters and tourists, roasting like turkeys under all our layers.

  Kim was still rabbiting. ‘The snowman … ? The bear and the hare … ? The penguin … ? The man on the moon … ? Liv, you’re killing me.’

  ‘Oh, I remember the penguin advert! He wanted a girlfriend or something, right? But I don’t recall the other three.’

  ‘Well, congratulations on being the most cold-hearted person in Britain. Have fun on your throne of stone.’

  Just as I was beginning to really dislike the feeling of another passenger’s roll of wrapping paper jabbing me in the eye, it was time to untangle from the tubers and spill out onto soggy Oxford Street. It was still heaving at this time in the evening, with a mash-up of every Christmas song from Now That’s What I Call Christmas booming from open shopfronts.

  Kim marched us both up the street, weaving expertly like a Dickensian street urchin through the crowds while I bumped my way past the other shoppers and generally made everyone hate me. We stopped in front of John Lewis.

  ‘Merry Christmas! Get in,’ Kim commanded.

  I’ll admit it; John Lewis is lovely at Christmas. Immediately I wanted to buy the entire Scandinavian winter lodge-style fake living room just inside the entrance, from the faux-fur blankets to the log tea light-holders, to the snow-sprinkled reindeer ornaments. I was just reaching for a miniature frosted tree in a pot when Kim slapped my hand away.

  ‘Nope. You need to think bigger. A Christmas tree is going to light up your whole apartment; nay – your life.’

  Off we trotted, accepting some of the most wonderful swag of the year from smiling sales assistants en route: a mini mince pie, a shot glass of Prosecco, and a spritz of the latest Philosophy festive scent. By the time we reached the wonderland that was the Christmas department, I was humming along to ‘Something Stupid’ like I was Nicole Kidman herself. ‘How about this one?’ I stopped at the first tree, an all-white creation whose spray-painted branches glistened with glittery faux-snow. I liked it.

  Kim scrutinised. ‘It’s a bit … blank.’

  ‘I like it; it would go really well in my apartment.’

  Kim gave me a pointed look that I ignored. ‘You know it’s only up for about a month, right? We’re not shopping for one to coordinate with your curtains.’

  ‘Nope, I like this one.’ I fingered the branches, willing myself to feel Christmassy. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, trying to tug back memories from my past of twinkling, traditional … no. I fell short at the recollection of a Santa in board shorts passing out slices of watermelon. I opened my eyes and focused on the tree, which was pretty. ‘I like the glitter, I like the fake snow, and I like the thought of buying those three-for-two baubles in red and covering it with them.’

  ‘Like blood spatter on a white wall.’

  ‘Oh. I’ll get the gold ones then.’

  ‘If that’s what you want … ’ Kim caressed the fluffy branch of a gigantic fake-fir that could have been lopped down from beside Santa’s house in Lapland.

  ‘I want the white one; you don’t own me.’ My strange affinity with this blank, emotionless tree was something I could mull over with my therapist, Squidgy Rabbit the stuffed toy, sometime. But for now I smiled at my friend, who succumbed to my will, and helped me pull the box out of the rack, giant-Jenga style.

  Kim looked up at me halfway through the task. ‘You will make time for Rockefeller, won’t you?’

  ‘Well … ’

  ‘That’s one Christmas tree you aren’t allowed to not care about.’

  I pictured the towering tree in my mind, an icon of New York at Christmas, and Kim’s favourite place in the world. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure I’ll go past it … ’

  ‘Liv, you have to go, it’s our place.’

  ‘But you won’t be there, so it won’t be the same anyway. And I don’t know if I’ll really have time—’

  ‘Make time. Please. I know you’re one pair of fingerless gloves away from Ebenezer Scrooge but we’ve been on the New York trip together every year, and every year we go and see the Rockefeller Christmas tree together. This year you have to go for both of us.’

  I looked down at my fingerless gloves. Was Kim right? Was I a Scrooge at Christmas? No, I had nothing against Christmas. I liked Christmas, it’s just that I didn’t really … care about it. I’d watch a Christmas movie if it was on TV, and drink Baileys if it was on offer, and exchange a couple of presents with my family sometime around the big day, depending on when they were all free to get together. But when you grew up in a family who escaped for two weeks of winter sun every Christmas, and were now spread out around the world, traditions and ‘proper Christmases’ were a bit off the radar.

  Christmas to me was a very lovely, very welcome break from work, from my team and the pressures that come with any job. It was a time to catch up on sleep, and it was the milestone between September and March where I gave my legs a shave.

  ‘I’ll go to Rockefeller,’ I said. ‘I’ll send you a photo. If I have time.’

  ‘You’re the boss this year, you’ll have time.’ Kim heaved the box out and, satisfied, trotted off towards the counter while I armed myself with gold baubles (and one box of the red) and a red reindeer to go on the top, because I’m not keen on fairies and the stars looked too prickly.

  All of a sudden I felt weighed down, not with Christmas decorations but with responsibility. There was no getting away from it – I was the boss this year. The past few days had zoomed by, a speeding train of note-taking, decision-making, list-creating and what felt like endless phone calls with Scheana. I’d boarded the train without really thinking: was I ready for this? Could I handle it? It was beyond exciting, but one niggling thought had been popping up ever since the day of the race … was I out of my depth?

  On the tube ride home, I trumped that passenger with the awkward rolls of wrapping paper from the previous journey, by forcing everyone to angle themselves around my Christmas tree box as if it were Baby Jesus himself.

  ‘I love my Christmas tree,’ I sighed, hugging the box. I’d show Kim who was Ebenezer Scrooge.

  ‘Praise the lord
!’ Kim said, embracing me with one arm. ‘And you promise you’ll go and see Rockefeller?’

  ‘Sure. This is my first ever Christmas tree, you know.’

  Several eavesdropping passengers side-eyed me like I was mad.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Seriously. We’ve never had a family Christmas at home, and I’ve never had one in my flat before.’

  ‘Not even with Kevin?’

  ‘Nope.’ I looked away, the best I could, without staring straight into a stranger’s set of boobies. It still smarted to think of him, even after all these years. ‘We always had Christmas separately, and we never decorated because all the spare money went towards … ’

  ‘ … the house fund,’ Kim finished for me, putting a much-needed end to that little conversation. Kim thought for a moment, whilst sucking on a complimentary John Lewis candy cane. ‘I think New York is going to be really good for you. This year, especially. You’ve never been the one making the decisions about the schedule and planning the itinerary. You’ve always been told you have to do this at this time, and be there at that time, and have dinner at Ristorante el Blandezvous while making small talk with delegates.’

  ‘This isn’t going to be any different – I still have to make sure everyone does the same job.’

  ‘But you’re in charge. You want to have a business meeting over hot chocolates at the top of the Empire State, you can do it. You want to hold a feminist rally on the Central Park ice rink: just book it, honey pie.’

  I gulped. All I heard was ‘business meeting’, and suddenly the fear of everything being On Me hit me again. I had to make sure Girls of the World’s presence at the #IWasHereNYC conference was a success. I looked at my new tree: Christmas would have to wait.

  Back at the flat we decorated my tree, Kim dancing along to a particularly festive episode of Strictly Come Dancing I’d recorded (she’d declared my one Christmas song as ‘crap’) while I found myself thinking about not wanting to think about Kevin.

  Trickles of regret ran through me as I hung the gold and red baubles. I shouldn’t have spent this much on a fake tree. A little part of me bitterly thought that Kevin wouldn’t be worrying about spending money on his Christmas tree. Well, he didn’t need to save up again from scratch, did he? A part of me broke loose to wonder about him and where he was now. Did he find the big house in the country after all? Was he with someone else? Had he grown up enough to treat her better than he had me?